I am all in on the bucket theory. My migraines are controlled by medication, supplements, sleep, exercise, food, water intake, what the weather is like, my stress levels, etc. They all play a factor
You are not a doctor. “Actively working towards feeling better” is a nice sounding phrase that doesn’t mean much in practice. I am reliant on medication and I see a migraine specialist at a tertiary university center. I identified my triggers relatively quickly and no matter what lifestyle changes I made, I struggled for almost 2 years until I found the right medication combo that could help me function normally. I don’t drink, don’t smoke, I eat a healthy diet, and I exercise fairly frequently. But I wasn’t able to get in a car for almost a year, buses now for almost two (I still can’t ride in buses). COVID gave me chronic VM and though it’s improved, it’s never gone away. (I am thankfully not intractable, but I’m chronic if unmedicated). There is lifestyle that’s important (reasonable trigger management, sleeping enough, etc), but the no 1 factor for me that makes me functioning is a carefully crafted cocktail of meds that’s slowly evolved since my diagnosis, and will probably continue evolving with time. There are some triggers (for me, getting in a vehicle) that are so life limiting that this isn’t a lifestyle change that can be made to accommodate them. I cannot “actively work towards” being able to get in a car (I’ll just end up status migraine). I wish I could, but I can’t, and so many others on this sub can’t either. I wish I didn’t have to take medication. I’m young and I don’t want to be taking this many pills. But the alternative is being nonfunctional (which is exactly what happened when I tried going off for 2 months). I trust my doctor to guide me on the best path, and I would encourage anyone to do that. Also, generally medication for cold/flu doesn’t truly do anything to facilitate healing, unless you’re actually taking an antiviral or an antibiotic in the case of bacterial infection — otherwise it just treats the symptoms temporarily. So no, “one pill” doesn’t resolve everything, but carefully chosen medication I think is often the most important factor in getting VM under control.
Did you just say that a pill will treat a cold or the flu? Very confused outlook you have there.
Migraine medication, unlike medicine for the flu(?!), actually works. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth taking.
>I think some people just expect things to work for them without putting any effort forward.
They’re literally doing research and asking for help. That is effort. Gatekeeping the *names* of medicine is bizarre.
Why join a support group if your ideology is “wow nobody better ask me for support”?
This reeks of “I had to suffer and find all the answers on my own and so should you.”
i agree to some extent and i think its super important to look at the entire picture holistically, but some people arent at that point in their journey yet and for me at least i needed to find the right meds before i even had the energy to put effort into lifestyle changes. i also think it's important to give meds the correct time to do a fair trial- like some injectables can take months to have a full effect. theres so much that doctors dont tell us and many of us live in a culture that frames medicine as a cure all but its really not the be all end all for chronic conditions that require many factors to maintain health over time. ugh its complicated but interesting at the same time
I agree that it’s complicated, but people need to put some effort in before they find the right answer. I know it’s hard, but cutting out certain foods isn’t nearly as hard as exercising every day. I think some people just expect things to work for them without putting any effort forward.
wouldnt it be amazing if one thing could solve everything lol!!! yeah its a kind of delusional optimism almost. i feel that there isnt quality education about integrative and holistic treatment. like people grow up thinking take an advil for a headache so shouldnt there just be something stronger for migraine that works the same? theres a whole unlearning process that needs to happen
Agreed. No pill is going to work if you drink a ton of alcohol, eat a bunch of cake, snort a bunch of wasabi, and headbang to death metal for 4 hours every morning in your closed off bedroom with bright flourescent lights and a bunch of cans of unopened paint.
It's super complicated to find the triggers and make consistent life changes. If you don't have a control, you can't test the variable. There's a crapload of potential triggers and it takes a ton of consistency and diligence to get tiny victories one at a time.
Exactly. You have to have a boring life for a while, which means you have to stop doing the enjoyable things in life so that you can start to figure out what you need to cut out.
It's just not possible for everyone, at all times
I feel like that goes without saying , but I am definitely in the boat, im sure like many others, where I can't just have a boring life at any given moment.
Some things are controllable but not all factors- stress, environment, sometimes work, diet.
I get what you're saying. Getting to your best point with migraine is a complex journey with many facets. I have chronic migraine, and if unmedicated, I have about 25 migraine days per month. Medication was the biggest piece of the puzzle for me. I can minimise triggers, exercise, eat well, and sleep 8 hours a day, but if I stop Botox and topiramate, my migraine days will shoot right back up to 25 per month. One pill or medication won't "solve all" as you're concerned people believe, but it can be a critically important part of managing a debilitating condition. Sharing the medications we take, the dosages, the side effects, and the medical professionals that can give advice on them is priceless to people starting their migraine journey.
Without meds, I go right back to 24/7 migraines, sometimes with meds I still end up 24/7. I mean, migraine is a neurological disease, you treat epilepsy with meds why wouldn’t you treat migraine with them too? The nature of migraine treatment, that there’s no magic pill,and having to try stuff until you find what works really sucks. But also according to my specialist, somewhere in the chronic territory your migraines can start triggering other migraines to, at which point you won’t be able to identify many triggers. I’ve had migraines for years and chronic ones for over 5 years, I only know a handful of triggers, besides that life in general is a trigger. since VM is so different from classic migraines, I think a lot of us end up in chronic territory before being diagnosed, that was certainly my experience, which makes managing it even harder, and can leave it down to just meds and physical therapy for treatment.
While I agree, I feel the physical differences that medication does for me. I agree that it isn’t for everyone, I do think that everyone needs to adopt and be okay with the prescribed therapy that works for them as an individual. Whether it’s an alternative therapeutic approach or a pharmaceutical approach or both.
I have gone through vestibular therapy, and tried the diets, to no avail. I haven’t had a ton of relief but I’ve had definitive changes with medication management.
I support whatever works for the individual, because everyone is different and will respond differently to different therapies. You do you. I love this group because we can share ideas, and each of us can try things and eliminate or incorporate them into our lives as we do the scientific research on our own responses. <3
I am so disappointed by this I thought our community was better than this.
The mindset of, 'medication isn't needed' is the reason why we have people who are afraid to take medications that are prescribed to them because of what other people will think of them for taking them.
I am just chomping at the bit to go on a rant but this doesn't deserve my time.
Yeah this post just made me want to leave this subreddit altogether. I’m not even on meds or actively trying meds at the current moment, but this pissed me off. How about we don’t judge others for using what helps them and trying out medications if it GIVES THEM THEIR QUALITY OF LIFE BACK? This is rage bait. I have to stop there.
Never seen anyone glorify medication.
Supplements and diet - and religious stuff though 😅
I don’ t have a success story yet - have tried everything BUT preventatives (because it ia hard getting the right diagnose).
So I am not glorifying the one pill, but I am trying to stay alive. So therefore asking others for advice on preventatives.
It is not gloryfying anything :) I just am doing all the other stuff in the «bucket» with no relief.
Oh man another "I do yoga and meditation and it has stopped world hunger" freak.Let's see how you will hate on medication once medication saves your life when you have a stroke in old age.Your are not sharing state secrets when people ask you what medications you take or are you just scared that if a medication will increase in price if more take it.
1000% agree. I saw a post where someone was on like five medications and still having horrible symptoms. At that point you’re probably experiencing side effects lmao
Hopefully! My neuro has the same thoughts: explore absolutely every avenue before playing with your brain chemistry. It felt discouraging at first, as I wanted a quick fix as well, but I’m thankful for it in the long run
Yes yes and yes! I am so sick of people asking me what medication they can take to make them normal again. I don’t tell people what I have taken and I tell them to work with a specialist to find the right match for them.
I am at 100% most days and my greatest healing didn’t come from medication. Healing took an immense amount of work and dedication. Sitting around waiting for medication to give you your life back is going to be a very disappointing experience.
I understand what you mean but my medication did certainly help to get to a point where I was able to put in the work to start healing.
Before my medication it was just debilitating symptoms that kept getting worse and worse.
Is it perfect now? No, but my meds certainly take the rough edges off so I can function well enough to work on a better future.
Thank you! :) And I’m happy for you!
Just being able to function in and around the home has been a gift after years of being so sick and not even know why.
Yesss happy for you too! I’m still in what I hope are early days of meds starting to turn things around a bit, but it at least feels like I’m (finally) on the right path…
So happy to hear that! Having hope for the future again is so important. I’m in the same stage it seems. :)
I still get exhausted quickly but at least I have enough energy to learn how to manage everything now.
I don’t know if you experience aura but I tried blue filter glasses and they helped me getting through a major light sensitivity triggered flare up in a shop. The attack/aura didn’t go away but it was more bearable after I put them on.
Regular blue light blockers didn’t do much for me but I got a pair of FL-41 (I think) glasses from Zenni that help a bit sometimes. Over-ear noise-cancelling headphones too!
Wishing us both luck trying to figure out how to live with this thing!
Interesting! I’ll look into them, thank you.
Yes over ear headphones have been my BFF for years now. They help me so much when I’m outside.
We’ve got this ;) It takes some time and effort to readjust but I think figuring out our new lifestyle will make it more manageable for sure. Good luck!
I am all in on the bucket theory. My migraines are controlled by medication, supplements, sleep, exercise, food, water intake, what the weather is like, my stress levels, etc. They all play a factor
You are not a doctor. “Actively working towards feeling better” is a nice sounding phrase that doesn’t mean much in practice. I am reliant on medication and I see a migraine specialist at a tertiary university center. I identified my triggers relatively quickly and no matter what lifestyle changes I made, I struggled for almost 2 years until I found the right medication combo that could help me function normally. I don’t drink, don’t smoke, I eat a healthy diet, and I exercise fairly frequently. But I wasn’t able to get in a car for almost a year, buses now for almost two (I still can’t ride in buses). COVID gave me chronic VM and though it’s improved, it’s never gone away. (I am thankfully not intractable, but I’m chronic if unmedicated). There is lifestyle that’s important (reasonable trigger management, sleeping enough, etc), but the no 1 factor for me that makes me functioning is a carefully crafted cocktail of meds that’s slowly evolved since my diagnosis, and will probably continue evolving with time. There are some triggers (for me, getting in a vehicle) that are so life limiting that this isn’t a lifestyle change that can be made to accommodate them. I cannot “actively work towards” being able to get in a car (I’ll just end up status migraine). I wish I could, but I can’t, and so many others on this sub can’t either. I wish I didn’t have to take medication. I’m young and I don’t want to be taking this many pills. But the alternative is being nonfunctional (which is exactly what happened when I tried going off for 2 months). I trust my doctor to guide me on the best path, and I would encourage anyone to do that. Also, generally medication for cold/flu doesn’t truly do anything to facilitate healing, unless you’re actually taking an antiviral or an antibiotic in the case of bacterial infection — otherwise it just treats the symptoms temporarily. So no, “one pill” doesn’t resolve everything, but carefully chosen medication I think is often the most important factor in getting VM under control.
This is a mod posting this post.
Did you just say that a pill will treat a cold or the flu? Very confused outlook you have there. Migraine medication, unlike medicine for the flu(?!), actually works. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth taking. >I think some people just expect things to work for them without putting any effort forward. They’re literally doing research and asking for help. That is effort. Gatekeeping the *names* of medicine is bizarre. Why join a support group if your ideology is “wow nobody better ask me for support”? This reeks of “I had to suffer and find all the answers on my own and so should you.”
🙏🙏🙏🙏EXACTLY THANK YOU! May your day be wonderful ❤️
I think you misunderstood the entire post.
i agree to some extent and i think its super important to look at the entire picture holistically, but some people arent at that point in their journey yet and for me at least i needed to find the right meds before i even had the energy to put effort into lifestyle changes. i also think it's important to give meds the correct time to do a fair trial- like some injectables can take months to have a full effect. theres so much that doctors dont tell us and many of us live in a culture that frames medicine as a cure all but its really not the be all end all for chronic conditions that require many factors to maintain health over time. ugh its complicated but interesting at the same time
I agree that it’s complicated, but people need to put some effort in before they find the right answer. I know it’s hard, but cutting out certain foods isn’t nearly as hard as exercising every day. I think some people just expect things to work for them without putting any effort forward.
I tried cutting out some “common migraine trigger foods” for “migraine safe foods” and felt worse than I had in a while. It’s not that simple.
wouldnt it be amazing if one thing could solve everything lol!!! yeah its a kind of delusional optimism almost. i feel that there isnt quality education about integrative and holistic treatment. like people grow up thinking take an advil for a headache so shouldnt there just be something stronger for migraine that works the same? theres a whole unlearning process that needs to happen
Agreed. No pill is going to work if you drink a ton of alcohol, eat a bunch of cake, snort a bunch of wasabi, and headbang to death metal for 4 hours every morning in your closed off bedroom with bright flourescent lights and a bunch of cans of unopened paint. It's super complicated to find the triggers and make consistent life changes. If you don't have a control, you can't test the variable. There's a crapload of potential triggers and it takes a ton of consistency and diligence to get tiny victories one at a time.
😂😂😂 Don’ t diss metal. Also: how many does that? 😅😮💨
Exactly. You have to have a boring life for a while, which means you have to stop doing the enjoyable things in life so that you can start to figure out what you need to cut out.
It's just not possible for everyone, at all times I feel like that goes without saying , but I am definitely in the boat, im sure like many others, where I can't just have a boring life at any given moment. Some things are controllable but not all factors- stress, environment, sometimes work, diet.
I get what you're saying. Getting to your best point with migraine is a complex journey with many facets. I have chronic migraine, and if unmedicated, I have about 25 migraine days per month. Medication was the biggest piece of the puzzle for me. I can minimise triggers, exercise, eat well, and sleep 8 hours a day, but if I stop Botox and topiramate, my migraine days will shoot right back up to 25 per month. One pill or medication won't "solve all" as you're concerned people believe, but it can be a critically important part of managing a debilitating condition. Sharing the medications we take, the dosages, the side effects, and the medical professionals that can give advice on them is priceless to people starting their migraine journey.
Without meds, I go right back to 24/7 migraines, sometimes with meds I still end up 24/7. I mean, migraine is a neurological disease, you treat epilepsy with meds why wouldn’t you treat migraine with them too? The nature of migraine treatment, that there’s no magic pill,and having to try stuff until you find what works really sucks. But also according to my specialist, somewhere in the chronic territory your migraines can start triggering other migraines to, at which point you won’t be able to identify many triggers. I’ve had migraines for years and chronic ones for over 5 years, I only know a handful of triggers, besides that life in general is a trigger. since VM is so different from classic migraines, I think a lot of us end up in chronic territory before being diagnosed, that was certainly my experience, which makes managing it even harder, and can leave it down to just meds and physical therapy for treatment.
This is a mod posting this. Wtf?
While I agree, I feel the physical differences that medication does for me. I agree that it isn’t for everyone, I do think that everyone needs to adopt and be okay with the prescribed therapy that works for them as an individual. Whether it’s an alternative therapeutic approach or a pharmaceutical approach or both. I have gone through vestibular therapy, and tried the diets, to no avail. I haven’t had a ton of relief but I’ve had definitive changes with medication management. I support whatever works for the individual, because everyone is different and will respond differently to different therapies. You do you. I love this group because we can share ideas, and each of us can try things and eliminate or incorporate them into our lives as we do the scientific research on our own responses. <3
This is a mod posting this. This no longer feels like a safe group.
I am so disappointed by this I thought our community was better than this. The mindset of, 'medication isn't needed' is the reason why we have people who are afraid to take medications that are prescribed to them because of what other people will think of them for taking them. I am just chomping at the bit to go on a rant but this doesn't deserve my time.
Yeah this post just made me want to leave this subreddit altogether. I’m not even on meds or actively trying meds at the current moment, but this pissed me off. How about we don’t judge others for using what helps them and trying out medications if it GIVES THEM THEIR QUALITY OF LIFE BACK? This is rage bait. I have to stop there.
Dude. This is a mod who posted this. Wtf.
Oh my god. You're a mod and you're posting this. NOT OK.
Never seen anyone glorify medication. Supplements and diet - and religious stuff though 😅 I don’ t have a success story yet - have tried everything BUT preventatives (because it ia hard getting the right diagnose). So I am not glorifying the one pill, but I am trying to stay alive. So therefore asking others for advice on preventatives. It is not gloryfying anything :) I just am doing all the other stuff in the «bucket» with no relief.
Oh man another "I do yoga and meditation and it has stopped world hunger" freak.Let's see how you will hate on medication once medication saves your life when you have a stroke in old age.Your are not sharing state secrets when people ask you what medications you take or are you just scared that if a medication will increase in price if more take it.
1000% agree. I saw a post where someone was on like five medications and still having horrible symptoms. At that point you’re probably experiencing side effects lmao
So- what do you think would help that particular person then that had not already been tried?
Cutting back on meds to see if any of them are even helping would be the first step
Probably something they discuss with the neurologist I would assume :)
Hopefully! My neuro has the same thoughts: explore absolutely every avenue before playing with your brain chemistry. It felt discouraging at first, as I wanted a quick fix as well, but I’m thankful for it in the long run
Yes yes and yes! I am so sick of people asking me what medication they can take to make them normal again. I don’t tell people what I have taken and I tell them to work with a specialist to find the right match for them. I am at 100% most days and my greatest healing didn’t come from medication. Healing took an immense amount of work and dedication. Sitting around waiting for medication to give you your life back is going to be a very disappointing experience.
I understand what you mean but my medication did certainly help to get to a point where I was able to put in the work to start healing. Before my medication it was just debilitating symptoms that kept getting worse and worse. Is it perfect now? No, but my meds certainly take the rough edges off so I can function well enough to work on a better future.
You do you, no one is taking your meds from you.
I’m not sure how to respond to that, I was just chiming in. Maybe you read it as more emotional than I intended it to be?
I appreciated you chiming in as that has been my experience too :)
Thank you! :) And I’m happy for you! Just being able to function in and around the home has been a gift after years of being so sick and not even know why.
Yesss happy for you too! I’m still in what I hope are early days of meds starting to turn things around a bit, but it at least feels like I’m (finally) on the right path…
So happy to hear that! Having hope for the future again is so important. I’m in the same stage it seems. :) I still get exhausted quickly but at least I have enough energy to learn how to manage everything now. I don’t know if you experience aura but I tried blue filter glasses and they helped me getting through a major light sensitivity triggered flare up in a shop. The attack/aura didn’t go away but it was more bearable after I put them on.
Regular blue light blockers didn’t do much for me but I got a pair of FL-41 (I think) glasses from Zenni that help a bit sometimes. Over-ear noise-cancelling headphones too! Wishing us both luck trying to figure out how to live with this thing!
Interesting! I’ll look into them, thank you. Yes over ear headphones have been my BFF for years now. They help me so much when I’m outside. We’ve got this ;) It takes some time and effort to readjust but I think figuring out our new lifestyle will make it more manageable for sure. Good luck!
If you don’t know how to respond, then just don’t 🙄
Absolutely, I actually made this post thinking about another post I saw talking about this exact thing. Thanks for responding though 🤗
All the people downvoting you are the ones sitting around waiting for the meds to give them their life back or the ones that will be on meds forever