Today I have a migraine. It’s my first migraine in 126 days. That was a really good long run.
What caused this migraine? It wasn’t a single trigger, but a multitude of things.
(And I’m writing this while I have a migraine and WOW are words hard right now.)
Hormones
I think these are the primary culprit. My period started again this morning. Yes, you read that right. My last period ended last Thursday, about a week ago. I’ve been spotting every single day this week. So yeah, my hormones are all over the place.
Lemon
Citrus is evidently a common migraine trigger. I had no idea that it was considered a common trigger until after I’d started reading a lot about migraines.
Last night, I had a new salad dressing that had lemon in it. I’d bought it because I keep forgetting that lemon can trigger my migraines.
This last week, I’ve also been pushing at the edges of my diet. I’d eaten things that I generally don’t eat every single day. If I’d eaten well all week, and my hormones weren’t having a party, would I have a migraine after eating that salad dressing? Probably not. It still would have given me a headache. And I need to remember no lemony anything, though I really miss it sometimes.
I need to focus on what I can do today, instead of what I can’t do. I can play with covers and cover designs. I can do some publishing work. I cannot write or edit. I get really sensitive to noise when I have a migraine, so I can’t listen to my podcasts or music. I may be able to read, we’ll see. Right now, it’s really hard to concentrate on anything.
I anticipate the migraine will disappear as if it never existed midday today. It’s pretty mild in terms of pain. It’s just all the other stuff that I can’t do today that’s frustrating.
So today I breathe, I drink water with salt in it, and I walk a lot. Those have proven to be the best migraine cure for me. (Note for anyone new – it turned out that the migraine meds I’d been taking were actually causing my migraine, not curing them. Ping me if you want more info on that.)
May your day be better than mine, which is admittedly a pretty low bar right now. (^_^)