Is this just my body chemistry playing games again?

[freyakitten]

You know those headaches where you're scared to move because when you do it sends your head pounding? And you can't see straight, everything seems skewed or 2-dimensional? And no painkiller will help until I've taken twice the max dosage of someone twice my size?

Today I discovered that two cups of coffee, taken slowly while doing something else that doesn't take clear eyesight (or much heavy concentration) like playing low-key bridge makes them go away.

Coffee can (and does in my case) increase your blood pressure, but you want to decrease it for migraines, don't you? Or is it something else? I wouldn't be surprised if the occasional migraine I get was due to low blood pressure; I'm convinced that that's why I sometimes feel ill for no reason (puking also elevates my blood pressure, and the highest reading I've ever had was 100/70, some hours after being very ill; usually it's around 90/60).

Is this a normal reaction? I know this wasn't a coffee addict headache because I didn't get the shakes as I usually do, and the pain was in a different area of the head.

Mind you I also rode my bike for 30 minutes (slowly) along rather pitted roads to get to bridge, and that may also have had something to do with it, although it didn't feel like it...

Comments

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Migraines seem to be associated with a variation in bloodflow in the brain, which depends on more factors than just pressure - dilating a vessel will increase the flow even if you don't change the pressure, and contracting will decrease the flow. I get the impression the underlying mechanism really isn't that well understood, and that it can vary from person to person.

There are several different treatments for migraine, most of which work well on some people and not on others - AFAIK the only way to find out which ones work for you is by trial and error. I do know caffeine tablets are used as a migraine treatment and are very effective for some people, so if caffeine seems to be helping you then it very likely is.

One thing a doctor of mine mentioned is that a lot of people get migraines when unwinding after a period of stress or exercise, as the blood flow patterns change, which seems to be how mine behave.

I wouldn't be surprised if the occasional migraine I get was due to low blood pressure; I'm convinced that that's why I sometimes feel ill for no reason

Nausea is a common part of migraine, and IIRC it's possible to have a migraine episode where you only experience the nausea without either of the other major symptoms (visual disturbance and headache). It's certainly possible to have visual symptoms without the headache.

[freyaw.livejournal.com]

> One thing a doctor of mine mentioned is that a lot of people get > migraines when unwinding after a period of stress or exercise, as > the blood flow patterns change, which seems to be how mine behave.

Is this kind of like getting hideously sick the moment that things _won't_ fall apart if you get sick? I usually come back from bridge trips (lots of brainwork and stress) and succumb to a respiratory illness shortly thereafter, but my migraines tend to have no consistent trigger that I can figure out.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Ah, I get that sort of thing sometimes. Post-coping crash :-) And my migraines seem to follow a similar pattern, but it varies from person to person.