Coping with Depression and Anxiety

There are three goals that migraine specialists have as they research and treat this illness that so many Americans suffer from. First, researchers need to learn the causes and triggers. This leads automatically into the next step, which is treatment. If the things that cause migraine are understood, then proper treatments can be devised. But understanding the underlying causes also helps with the third goal, which is migraine prevention.

One of the biggest advances in the research has been with regard to migraine triggers. A great many of these have been discovered, falling into two categories: controllable and uncontrollable. Uncontrollable triggers might be things like changing weather patterns. For example, big swings in barometric pressure, a high humidity, and certain types of wind can all trigger a migraine. One might think migraine prevention would be impossible when it comes to these factors, but they might at least be mitigated to some extent.

Another type of migraine that some feel falls into the “uncontrollable” category would be the menstrual migraine. After all, a woman can’t very well just stop menstruating to prevent a headache. Yet the trigger here seems, at least in part, to be either too much or too little estrogen. Menstruating women can’t entirely control their estrogen levels, yet they might be able to alter the dosage to some degree in their birth control pills. And post-menopausal women can certainly adjust dosages in their hormone replacement therapies. So migraine prevention might even be possible in these cases.

But there are definitely triggers that people can detect and do something about. For example, if they realize that certain foods appear to trigger a severe headache, over and over again, then they can take those foods out of their diet. Some of the more common examples of this are chocolate, cheese and dairy, or citrus. But foods aren’t the only controllable triggers. The person might react to strong fumes and smells as well, so they might be able to avoid places where a lot of painting is going on. Migraine prevention can be possible when people learn what their controllable triggers are, and do whatever they can to get those things out of their lives.

The Mayo Clinic advises that a healthy lifestyle with regular exercise and sleep patterns, lower stress levels, and regular meals can also work toward migraine prevention. But detecting one’s triggers and removing the controllable ones can be the biggest step one can take with regard to migraine management, and might actually prevent the onset of one of these headaches even if there’s an uncontrollable trigger coming, like a big change in the weather.

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