Stackable Trigger Confusion

MigrainePuppet Living With It I have been dealing with Migraine disease since I was about six years... Send Message Subscribe: MigrainePuppet

Monday, May 25, 2009
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The more I have learned about Migraines, in a layman's sense, the more I feel I don't know about them and need to learn additional information. It seems triggers are one of the big keys to Migraines and what you do with your triggers is one of the most important factors for you as triggers can be ver...

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Untitled Comment
Nancy Harris Bonk
Monday, May 25, 2009 at 04:59 PM

Hello, and welcome to MyMigraineConnection.com!

Thank you for creating a SharePost. SharePosts are a form of blogging, and there are many things you can do with them. You can share an experience, suggest something that's helped you, use SharePosts as a Migraine and headache journal, and many other things.

Let me see if I can clear things up a bit for you. "Triggers can be cumulative or, in the words of Dr. Jan Lewis Brandes, stackable. In other words, we can have triggers of differing strengths. Some may be strong enough to trigger a Migraine by themselves. Others may be weaker and only trigger a Migraine when we're stressed or when we encounter them in combination with one or more other triggers," writes Teri Robert in her podcast on Migraine triggers.

Some people are triggered by things this way - I know my son is - if he eats chocolate three days in a row, and then gets dehydrated he will get a Migraine. Chocolate and dehydration alone are triggers too, but together are "stackable" or cumulative for him.
Now, let's say he watches his chocolate, stays hydrated, gets a good night sleep but the weather pressure starts to change(another trigger for him) he may not get a Migraine each time. But if he is working hard in school, feeling a bit anxious about things and the weather changes the Migraine may hit.

Does that help any? Have you kept a Migraine diary to see what may or may not be triggering your Migraines? We have a free diary you can see HERE. Migraines Often Triggered By Change In the Weather has good information in it too.

We also have a discussion forum that you may want to check out. Especially if you have questions or are looking for information, you may find the interaction on the forum to be quite helpful. To get to the forum, just look for the orange box marked "Manage" and click on the Migraine Forums link. Because our forums are maintained by a third party, you'll need to register for the forum. You can use the same information you used to create your community log-in if you like. If you want to go directly to the forum, you can click HERE.

Along with your personal "My Home" page and the discussion forum, you'll find links to a great deal of helpful information and a spot to sign up for our free newsletter on the main page of our site, http://www.MyMigraineConnection.com.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them to the forum or send me a message through my profile.

Welcome again,

Nancy Bonk
MyMigraineConnection.com Expert

re: Untitled Comment
MigrainePuppet
Monday, May 25, 2009 at 11:31 PM

Hello Nancy,

Actually the part about the triggers that you bolded is the part I kept reading over and over again. And where Dr Brandes says these are triggers of differing strengths is where I thought I should stay away from them because as you mention, you never know when an unavoidable trigger will come along like the weather or a stressful situation.

I also posted a question in Ask a Question about another avoidable trigger, but it is a little different. It had to do with taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It's different because taking the stairs should be better for you than taking an elevator, but is it really if it could eventually contribute to a Migraine? This disease is just so frustrating sometimes.

re: re: Untitled Comment
Nancy Harris Bonk
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 09:32 AM

Oh, I know how confusing it is, really I do. So if taking the stairs is an issue for you, you may have to avoid them. Walking up stairs is an issue for me at times for many reasons, but taking them down is usually ok. But that doesn't mean exercise is to be avoided all together. I use the elevator, but park the car a bit farther away from the entrance of the building. We have a great article about how to "sneak" in some exercise: 10 Ways for Migraineurs To Sneak In Some Exercise,(modify the stairs as you see fit.)

Another thing one can do is use the exercise bike. A recent study showed that using this kind of bike didn't increase a Migrainuers risk of getting a Migraine: Finally, certain exercise won't make our Migraines worse!

Hope this helps some

Food triggers
cherie
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 05:42 PM

Migraines are very frustrating. I am also a chocolate lover ... There are times that I just have to have it ... I've learned that milk chocolate is a much stronger trigger than dark chocolate ... for me I can eat dark chocolate and avoid a migraine ... it is a possible option for others.

Good luck ...

Untitled Comment
SteveW
Saturday, August 08, 2009 at 01:45 AM

Hi MP,

Welcome to the club. I opened up a can of pears the other day for desert. About an hour later my head almost went into orbit!

Not only is there the Stacking Effect, there's also the Lag Effect. By the time you juxtapose those onto the known Migraine Triggers you'll find you're dealing with a staggering combination of possibilities. Now, personally I'm not too bright, and I've long ago given up on the frustration of the issue. Might I suggest you try to realize you can't beat this problem - it's just too darned complex. Perhaps better to absorb information as best you can (without getting paranoid) and somehow press forward with life. While it's not a perfect approach it more or less works for me.

There's also the cost of the medications (not to mention all the other life-imposed issues). Where I live (Nova Scotia) there are ways to get financial assistance. You need a GOOD doctor who will go to bat for you.

Is all this helpful? I doubt it, but I sure have empathy for you.

SteveW

re: Untitled Comment
MigrainePuppet
Saturday, August 08, 2009 at 02:58 PM

Hello Steve - Thank you for your information. Did you know that some food triggers can take up to 48 hours before they trigger a Migraine? That's one of the things that can make identifying food triggers so tricky.

I found a lot of my food triggers when I did the elimination diet. As I added back different foods, I kept a reaction rating (similar to a Migraine intensity rating), listed all of the possible ingredients in the trigger food I added back (which could have been the actual trigger) and added a comment about how the food affected me.

You sound like you've been able to isolate some kind of a food trigger with the can of pears. My next step would be to try a fresh pear. Does a plain pear trigger a Migraine for you? If it does, you know you should avoid pears as they would be a Migraine trigger for you. If not, what ingredients are in the syrup of the canned pears? Perhaps there is something in there that is your trigger and you would probably want to find out what that trigger is. From here, you could take those ingredients and eliminate them one at a time. It's really not as hard as it might sound and well worth the results. The more triggers we can identify and eliminate, the better off we will be.

I know what a remarkable difference eliminating my trigger foods has made from the number of Migraines I was getting since I started avoiding my trigger foods. We should never give up trying. We have too much to lose to give up.

Have you visited the support forum here? You would need to register for the forum separate from your SharePosts registration, but you can use the same email address and password to get in. There is a lot of great information and discussions on triggers or whatever information you want to bring up there. If something seems too overwhelming, this is the place to go to have people, who have been there, help you break it out into smaller more manageable pieces. Thank you again for replying to my post.