It’s All Connected!

That's a tagline from the show Manifest, which my younger daughter and I watched. I could have sworn my older daughter watched it too, but she didn’t, so she kept saying mmhmm when I uttered the line. I found out last weekend that she had no idea why I kept saying it ~ and I usually say it ironically. Just another example of Mom being weird...

I have always tried to figure out my migraines, starting from when I was 16 and got slammed with my first at a friend’s house after eating raw cookie dough. Aha! There’s the connection…chocolate or sugar or eggs or white flour or… Hmm. It also could have been from something else going on that day. All I remember though is cookie dough, disabling pain, and someone having to drive me home in my car. Since then, I’ve become more used to migraines and don’t think the world’s ending when I get hit with one, though some are definitely worse than others, and every once in a while one makes me totally ill.

Here are some things that are almost guaranteed to trigger a migraine: alcohol, lack of sleep, strong perfume, cigarette smoke, the smell of tar, being sick especially with a stuffy nose, being in loud, stressful situations (as I define them), flashing lights, and nacho cheese Doritos (not other Doritos and not other cheese flavored things, such as Cheez-Its, which I can eat a ton of, not that I should).

It’s highly likely I will end up with a migraine after experiencing any of the above ~ what I term the super triggers. These items definitely seem connected to the migraine generation process. The next group of items I call the associates. Maybe they’re connected, maybe they’re connected only when another factor is present, maybe they aren’t connected at all. Who the hell knows?

These are the associates: the entire month of September, Santa Ana winds, low air pressure, high air pressure, getting upset, crying, yelling at my cat, oversleeping, talking a lot, walking in the wind and/or cold, eating too much, eating too little, chocolate, hard cheese, some allergy meds.

Caffeine doesn’t seem connected to migraines, though I cut out coffee last week because it was giving me a tummy ache. It's hard to tell whether I'm having withdrawal headaches on the daily or if this is just my normal September pain. Now that I am used to not having coffee though, I may make that permanent ~ honestly, after a couple days I didn't miss it at all and am back to black tea with milk (I put milk in my coffee too), which is very soothing. Next on the chopping block is diet soda. I have cut it before with no difference in head pain, but it’s just so unhealthy I feel like it’s time to say goodbye regardless. I have given up alcohol for vast stretches of time, and I think I should again. The migraine I woke up with last Sunday at my daughter's after having wine was really awful. Here's why it's not as easy to nix as coffee: red wine is really yummy, and there's nothing to substitute for it. Also, after a few months of going without, I manage to convince myself that it's OK to have a little if I eat with it and drink water. Nope. Oh well. 

I feel a poem approach: Things I Have Given Up.

Don't worry, I no longer torture my blog readers with my poetry; it will go into the book no one will buy. Hurrah!