'We don't need sugar to live.' – Mehmet Oz

Usually I have cereal and yogurt for breakfast. Twice in the last two weeks I've had an especially sugary breakfast, then got a migraine by mid-morning. I mentioned this to a dietician friend and she confirmed that sugar is often a trigger, especially for people who are on the cusp of a migraine, as I perpetually am. It's not good to get a migraine, but it is good to learn more triggers. Unfortunately I will have to rein in my sweet tooth.

'Every moment in our lives is a miracle we should enjoy instead of ignoring.' – Yoko Ono

Something strange happened today. I don't know yet if it will lead to a migraine or not. Basically when I woke up I felt a bit off and took a Maxalt wafer. I functioned fine for the next several hours, then in the afternoon at work I started getting waves of tiredness and sore eyes. These spells often came with dizziness. It happened three or four times over the course of the afternoon. I felt this overwhelming heavy headedness and my eyes felt strained, which is not uncommon at the start of a migraine. Then (miraculously?) it would go away again and I was fine until an hour or so later when it would happen again. I'm having a quiet night at home and resisting all chocolate, alcohol or anything else that might trigger a full migraine.

'To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer or a migraine.' – Farmers' Almanac, 1978

I get a lightheaded, cross-eyed feeling after I've been looking at a computer, TV or phone screen for too long. My head seems to buzz and I often feel overwhelmed or anxious. I put all this aside as my own, unique issue and totally manageable (i.e. ignorable). Then, last week I answered a survey about my smartphone and social media usage.

Do you check into social media within five minutes of waking up? Yes. Do you sleep with your phone beside your bed? Yes. Do you use your phone in the middle of the night when you can't sleep? Yes. 

These and other questions made me think perhaps I was becoming addicted to (or at least too reliant on) my phone and the time-wasting qualities of social media. So for the past week I've avoided Facebook and Twitter. I've only used my phone as a phone (and very occasionally as a music player and weather station). It's been good: my head doesn't hurt as often, I've been more aware of how much mindless TV I watch too and reduced that, and I've done some research into migraines and screen time.

I found this Migraine Triggers fact sheet, which talks about a "threshold" rather than "causes" per se. It's a perspective that makes sense, but that I hadn't thought about before. However, now that I read it, it sounds like something my chiropractor has said – perhaps while I had a migraine so I didn't take it in.

This Migraines and Your Job article had some useful reminders which I've heard before, but it helps to be told again. As does this one: Is Working At My Computer Causing My Headaches?. They talk about glare off the screen and from the overhead lights. Also I am reminded that posture is important for reducing neck, back and shoulder tension, which unchecked lead to migraines.

Now I know that 1) I am not alone in feeling the negative effects of staring at a screen, 2) those effects could be contributing to my migraines and 3) I can give up superfluous use of screens without dire consequences. It just remains to figure out how to balance my writing, work and leisure needs against migraine prevention.

'The migraine is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' – Paradise Lost by John Milton)

Yesterday was a good day for me migraine-wise, even though I had one. It was prophesied from the moment I woke up by that cruel trick of the migraine: feeling great. This is a new symptom that I didn't know about until my chiropractor pointed it out a few months ago. Before many of my migraines hit, I feel manic, like I can do anything, totally unstoppable. I think it's sadistically ironic that this euphoric feeling comes before all hell breaks loose brain-wise. I'm slowly learning to tell the difference between feeling unnaturally wonderful and feeling normally healthy. I missed the signal yesterday, but the bonus was that I enjoyed a day out and about with my husband on a mini-roadtrip.

Before we left, I spent some time on Huffington Post researching news about migraines, watching interviews with fellow migraineurs and reading about surprising triggers. This was unexpectedly useful. The ladies in the interview, particularly Nancy Girvin, told similar stories to mine. I don't like to wallow and I'm naturally optimistic, but this reminded me that sometimes it is good to commiserate. None of my friends or family experience chronic migraines. They are wonderfully sympathetic and tolerant when I get one, but it's not the same as listening or talking to someone who goes through them.

On Huffington Post I also found an article about '10 Surprising Culprits'. I don't know why, but I compulsively read these types of lists of triggers. Maybe I'm searching for the something I'm missing that I could avoid to be miraculously cured. (Did I mention I'm an unrealistic optimist?) Several of the items of the Huffington Post list validated triggers I already knew for myself, but have never seen mentioned anywhere else. It was nice to have my wheat allergy validated (first time ever). Unfortunately the other triggers mentioned were unavoidables: rain (I've known for a while that stormy weather makes me more prone to migraines), oestrogen (I like being a woman) and other people's strong perfume or loud noises (makes sense, I will deal with this later).

To cap off my great day of driving and discoveries, I got a migraine. I was making dinner and some of the cauliflower fell out of my hand on the way to the pot. Then the onions leapt off the counter. Next I noticed that I felt like I was losing my mind. I think I tell myself that when I feel the weird migraine disassociation coming on. At that point I took a Maxalt wafer. Afterwards, I felt so calm, mindful and at peace. In the new year I'll have to see if I can get similar positive effects without the pharmaceuticals.