Of course, everyone has a theory.
My mother and my best friend are sure it it's menopause hormones.
oh yeah, there's got to be some sort of hormonal connection, because there always has been. Until recently, the worst migraines I'd ever had were during pregnancy. And I could basically depend on at least one a month, the day before my period would start. I'm nearly 50, so I'm sneaking up on middle age, to say the least. (But I am still having very regular periods, and all my hormone levels were some of the billion things they checked last week when they drew 5 vials of blood. I was normal for the "pre-ovulatory" phase, which is dead on target according to my calendar.)
My mother had an early hysterectomy, but MamaCile, Aunt Katherine, and Aunt Robbie all had long, miserable, migraine-filled "changes." I just hope that now, 60 years down the road from when Mamacile started going through it, that maybe we can do something else. Or that there's some other, contributing factor than can be dealt with.
My latest contributing friend (everyone has an idea!) has me trying not to eat corn. I know, it probably sounds ridiculous, but I've know just enough people over the years with corn/cornsyrup problems, and migraines and other similar symptoms to give it a try. Why not. My good friend Jean G. reminded me of her long and on-going migraine struggle, Maxalt, Topamax, B12, Vitamin D, other stuff. But what finally helped was talking to another friend of ours, Ellen, whose younger sisters (twins) have this corn intolerance that was giving them migraines and the other assorted symptoms, similar to Jean, and me (mental fog, forgetfulness, achy joints, back, and neck, fatigue, etc). So Jean went corn-free, which meant giving up Coke! Because it's high in high fructose corn syrup. She feels much better, and the HAs are gone. She's been able to narrow it down to just HFCS, in fact. Like another friend of mine (Diane) who, since I've known her has been unable to eat anything with corn syrup in it. She's always had to cook for herself because so much packaged food has corn syrup in it. Jean buys her Coke now from the Mexican grocery, because Mexican Coke is still bottled with real sugar. And she occasionally has Fritos, which don't have HFCS, but are corn, salt, and fat. And that's all. I eat them a lot, because my thyroid and adrenal problems make me crave salt, and I've been told to honor those cravings, they're something with only three, familiar ingredients. But I haven't had any for two days now.
I'm telling you, I'm desperate, I'm even to the point where if they told me exercise would help, I'd think about joining a stupid Gym!!
And one friend sent my favorite so far, a link to a NY Times Health pages article on certain types of plastic surgery (forehead, temple, and back of the neck) seem to completely eliminate migraines for people whose HAs are triggered in those regions. They've done a placebo study. Some women got the special surgery that pads the nerves connected to migraines, some just got the regular plastic surgery. The cure rate was 55% of the women had their HA completely eliminated. Not "reduced." Gone.
curiouser and curiouser
Well, I've got to get off to Walgreens before my afternoon slump, so later!
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