migraine day

Laurel endured a 3-day migraine this week. When I said I, too, get migraines. She asked what triggers them.

This is what I posted in her comments:

"It's rare for mine to go for more than one day ... Used to be I could say I'd never had one last more than one day ... alas, 's no longer the case.

My migraines may be very powerful tension headaches tho they come with furious nausea and sensitivity to light & sound & smell & touch ... & probably taste, but with the nausea eating's not happening anyway ... When I had a checkup last year my new doctor looked at my back, dropped a word I didn't quite catch, and said that would be why I have so many headaches. What does that word mean? I asked ... Said he, Curved back.

For more'n ten years now I've been working through yoga & weights to stretch my spine and loosen my tight tight muscles/tendons/everything. Big progress. But it brings on migraines. If I've gotten in a fierce batch of stretches I can almost feel the reactive tightening -- and in the morning I can have a migraine that incapacitates me for the day. Lots of great progress, really. Range I never thought I'd have. ... And I've paid for it all along the way. Strange to think pain so brutal all I want to do is drive nails into my head is price worth paying. But I figure I'm going to have the migraines anyway; might as well suffer toward improvement than merely suffer in decline."

Last night I did some stretches. I wouldn't have have called them "a fierce batch," really. It was sitting. To stretch my hips so when I can sit cross-legged on the floor for an extended period. Sitting cross-legged on the floor can get very tiring, even painful. So I do some stretches I picked up in yoga class and these stretches have improved my sitting. I also did down-dog, which is named after the stretch a dog does when it sticks its butt in the air and lengthens its spine down to the outstretched forepaws. Anything else? Oh yeah. A very brief boat pose. That one is probably the one that puts the most stress on my upper back. You sit on the floor, legs straight out in front and lean back, then you lift your legs so you're balancing in a V-shape on your butt.

Nothing seemed painful last night. I had to do a lot of head and shoulder shaking to integrate the moves. I lay down. I felt okay.

This morning I woke with a migraine. I took medicine for it, hoping I could head it off before it became incapacitating. Didn't quite work. Finally I had to call work and say I wouldn't be able to make it in. It's mid-afternoon now and my head is feeling kind of light and wobbly, my neck stiff, and my body generally fragile. But I'm hungy! A nice change from the nausea that had me hunched over the toilet at 8 a.m.