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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Oh you pesky migraines!

 When I was pregnant with Finley, I used to get ocular migraines.  In the beginning of the pregnancy I would get them almost every other day.  At first I got a little nervous because they were happening so frequently but after speaking with my OB, who then referred me to a neurologist, we decided that it was purely hormone related.  I am lucky in that, as of now, I don't get the actual headache that comes with the migraine...if that makes sense.  People ask me what an ocular migraine is and I found this video that shows what it's like for me when I get one.


This is pretty accurate on what I see when I get one, except it lasts anywhere from 20-30 minutes.  Again, I don't get the pain with it but eventually I could.  For now, I just have to deal with the fact that I can't really see anything for about 30 min.  Yes, I've had one before while driving....not cool at all!
The later I got in my pregnancy with Finley, I hardly got them anymore.  By the end I wasn't getting them at all.  When I was breastfeeding I started getting them again.  Again...hormone related.   However, after I was done nursing and was done with all that hormone stuff I continued to get them.  A few weeks ago, I got one so bad that I felt like it really made my brain foggy and then I continued to get 2 more that evening and into bedtime.  That freaked me out so I went straight to my eye doctor the next morning to rule out anything with my eyes.  Sometimes if your retina is detached you can have these symptoms.  But after a thorough exam, he said it was nothing with my eyes and to head over to the neurologist to make sure it was nothing serious.
I went to the neuro and this is what it came down to:  I am a classic migrain-er.  Yes, I am just one of those people that will continue to get migraines and she said as I get older, it will probably turn into the full-blown migraines.  Awesome....
However, she gave me some tips on what usually triggers migraines and all of these totally apply to me!!
1.  stop drinking red wine.  She explained why but I forget the reason, something with the coloring
2.  Stop the "running".  Boohoo....she said I can lightly jog but the pounding exercises are bad for people with migraines.  So, I'm not sure what this means for my triathlons...guess we will see.  I did tell her that since I've been training, the migraines have gotten a lot worse.  Isn't that weird how that happens?  I would think exercise would make them better, but it makes sense that the intense exercising wouldn't help.  I need to be doing more swimming, yoga, biking...things like that
3.  Absolutely no hormones for me.  I've never taken birth control and apparently I never should.  Annie +hormones = don't mix!!  Nick can tell you that from experience :)
4.  Get enough sleep and keep stress under control.  I told Nick that my migraines also got significantly worse while we were going through all this selling/building a house thing.  I remember the day we came home from spending most of the day with our builder I came home and got a big migraine and it put me out the rest of the night.  My neuro did say that if you get TOO MUCH sleep that can also cause migraines...interesting.

I'm guessing that if I do all these that I should be able to get them under control and they have been better the last couple weeks.  Last month I was getting about 2 per week and now it's down to about 1 every 2-3 weeks.  I'm also just glad it's nothing serious!  So for now, I'll be enjoying my yoga classes while sipping on white wine, whoop!!!

2 comments:

Katie said...

Boo on the migraines, but glad you got a clean bill of health. White wine and whiskey it is ;) ps...running sucks anyway ;)

Bethany said...

I get that EXACT thing. Only my vision is clear without any colors. So weird…I get the vision loss then a pounding migraine. This is good info.