Migraines are throbbing and recurring headaches that often come with other debilitating symptoms including vision disturbance, nausea and vomiting, fatigue and sensitivity to light, smells and touch. You may suffer from one or more of these symptoms, but everyone feels the effects of their migraines differently.
More than 3 million people in Canada have suffered from migraines at least once in their lives. If you suffer from migraines, you may have felt this intense pain during times of stress or when you’ve been sleep deprived, but discovering exactly what triggers them for you may help to prevent them in the future. Here are a few things that may be beneficial:
- Get enough sleep
You may notice your migraines occurring when you haven’t been sleeping well or long enough. Make sure you pay attention to your body and get the recommended amount of sleep each night (7–9 hours).
If you’re feeling particularly tired throughout the day, it may be worth tracking your sleep patterns. There are many fitness devices and apps that track how you’re sleeping. Before bedtime, encourage sleep by unwinding for a couple of hours and turning off your screens for at least an hour. You can also talk to your doctor about other ways you can get the sleep you need to prevent migraines.
- Manage your stress levels
Migraines are largely triggered by stress. Be sure to take time for yourself during periods of intense stress at work or home and breathe deeply when you can. Take your mind off your troubles through exercise, and step away for a couple of minutes if you’re faced with a stressful situation. It can be hard to give yourself time to de-stress, but if you get a migraine, you likely won’t have the capacity to even face the tasks that are stressing you out. That’s why it’s worth trying to unwind when you can.
- Record your migraine attacks in a journal
Every time you suffer from a migraine, write down the details in a journal. What were the symptoms before, during, and after? What did you eat that day? How many hours of sleep were you getting leading up to the migraine? How many glasses of water did you drink? How many cups of coffee or tea? Keeping track of each recurrence will help you find patterns and commonalities in your migraines. By determining your triggers, it can make it easier to manage them.
- Try Botox
If you can’t seem to shake your chronic migraines through lifestyle changes, there’s another option, and we offer it at MD ESTHETICS. Botox is often used to help ease the pain of chronic migraines. Though specialists are still researching the exact reasons why it helps, they guess that it has to do with the trigeminovascular system, a sensory pathway that’s believed to cause the headache phase of a migraine. The injections reduce the expression of nerve cell pathways in the trigeminovascular system to keep them from triggering a migraine.
At MD ESTHETICS, Dr. Milkovich and Dr. Banks safely and effectively perform therapeutic Botox treatments to help reduce the severity and frequency of your migraines. The treatment only takes about 5 minutes, and you can expect results that last about 3 to 4 months.
Start taking control of your migraines today. Contact us to book your appointment or learn more about our other products and treatments including body contouring, skin health lasers and Botox Cosmetic.