As you know, I completed the Kharrazian Institute Chronic Headaches and Migraine course last week. So, what happens this week? A ruddy migraine! I swear my body is so suggestible. This is why, if I ever specialise, it will be in something I can’t get – men’s health or fertility come to mind! Thankfully, it’s not full-blown and I’ve not had one for almost a year. Typical.
Anyway, I shall make a positive out of it. It helps me explain one concept of why migraine happens and how to prevent them.
Migraine is really complex, obviously, but one big factor to be aware of is the allostatic load. It’s a bit like the histamine bucket theory with the water level slowly creeping up until it bursts over the sides and we have a problem, Houston.
So, one way to prevent migraines is to keep that bucket level low.
Here’s a great diagram from the course that shows what I mean:
As you can see, it all builds up. This is just one example and it will be different for everyone, but it makes the point well. It’s actually pretty close to what I think happened with me.
We start with a genetic susceptibility – thanks Mum and/or Dad – we might become magnesium deficient, a biggie in migraine for some, not for others, we become insulin resistant – maybe we have PCOS, which makes us very insulin resistant, but it happens as we get older a lot anyway. Of course, magnesium is needed for insulin control to so it all fits together nicely. Then along comes a time of hormone shift – for me, that was perimenopause, much earlier than I expected – in fact, I learned recently that PCOS sufferers tend to have earlier menopause and peri lasts for years longer than non PCOS people. Aargh. Might have been useful to know. I never sussed it at the time. Doh.
That was enough to tip me personally over the threshold – hormones often are. But I also had a gluten/MCAS issue so hormones on top and bam – migraine starts.
In the example here, the person has now reached migraine threshold. In other words, there’s enough pressure on the body and brain to cause an inflammatory reaction in susceptible people. Like me. In someone else, that might be arthritis or diverticulitis or some other inflammatory condition, of course. Wherever their particular inflammatory weaknesses lie.
In the example above, the person goes on to suffer sinusitis, asthma and intestinal inflammation. So, to help this person, you’d have to establish the pattern of build up of conditions, if you like, and try to reverse them back down, certainly deal with as many of those building factors as you can to get them back under the migraine threshold.
Does that make sense?
With me, I realised I was pushing diabetes so did something to lower my insulin resistance. My hormones shifted, which must have helped rather than hindered that time – I assume the balance between oestrogen and progesterone came back as my periods stopped. I had started using magnesium salts in the bath every day, meditating/doing my Healing Plan again and had moved back to Cornwall to ultra-clean air. I think I had always underestimated the PCOS and the insulin resistance, frankly. Lesson learned.
The Daily Allostatic Load
However, the concept of threshold can be seen in more daily life too. Take me this week. I wish someone would.
I was asked if I could make someone a neuropathy balm for their diabetic feet. Yep. I can do that. Normally, I would just do oils – St John’s wort primarily – but I thought we don’t want slidey feet or oily carpets do we? So, as always, Mrs Professional set out to make a balm that would absorb well. I knew I couldn’t touch or tolerate most things you’d usually make a balm out of, so I made one out of just two ingredients. I mean: come on – that’s not going to get me, is it?
Except it did. Such a shame as it was fab!
So, my build-up started off with balm-gate a few days ago. My ears swelled so much I lost my hearing after about 15 minutes. So, if I used it, I’d have lovely skin but be deaf! I felt jangly and ringy in my head, but only mildly.
Next day, we were going to see some pretty gardens but got stuck behind a veeerrryyy sloooooooow bus that was testing to see how low the branches were, measuring them along the tiny not-overtakable lanes for about 5 miles. This would normally be a pain in the bum, but clearly balm-gate had affected my nerves and emotional health too and I got really stressed. We came home.
Following day, the gardeners came and mowed the lawns – a lovely boost of polleny histamine right when I didn’t need it. They also spent 2 hours with very loud hedge trimmers and leaf blowers, which is just too much for me when my sensory load is pushing towards too high. The sun was beautiful but the glare off the sea was getting to me. I had a late tea and realised I’d hardly any food in, so I ate an egg from a farm rather than my usual more crappity supermarket ones. They must feed their chickens more grain and I felt rubbish after it. Didn’t sleep well.
Then yesterday, I had a friend round who hadn’t remembered not to put on her perfume. I kept as far away from her as possible, but I knew. Heart sink, although I love her company. In the afternoon, I had to go to the hairdressers – more chemical smells and loud chatter/hairdryers etc.
Boom. By 2 hours later, I had a migraine. I’d passed my personal threshold at that particular time.
Do you see how the allostatic load concept works?
The trick, then, is to prevent the load building up. Both the big condition factors, but also the small every day ones. And it will be different every single time, of course. How much can you tolerate that day? Or not?
In my case, prevention of those particular cumulative triggers is: don’t touch that balm again, use my new blinds and new tinted glasses I’ve just bought to keep sensory load down, go out and sit by the sea when the gardeners come, use my HEPA filter to get rid of the perfume smell in the house and ask my friend not to wear it (and apologise for being a right royal sensitive pain in the backside) and off-gas the perfumey sofa cushions outside. Maybe have a home hairdresser. Sigh. Life. It’s hard enough, isn’t it?
Sometimes, of course, you don’t know what the triggers are and therein lies the art of migraine clinic work – trying to find and improve as many as you can to bring it under threshold – and low enough so that, if life throws something at you – which it will – you’re low enough for it not to tip you over the edge!
I hope that helps. Migraine is horrid, horrid, horrid. Migraine factsheet incoming as soon as I feel better. Meantime, send me some love. I’m feeling sorry for myself x
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