Reduced stress reduced my migraine severity

[darthwilko82]

Hi everyone. Just wanted to share something that's happened to me over the last few months - particularly since lockdown. My partner and I live on the North Wales coast in quite a rural village which means that when my daughter comes to visit every few weeks, we drive 90+ miles to collect her, 90+ miles back and then her mum picks her up. When lockdown started, we were under tighter restrictions than England here and also because my partner has rheumatoid arthritis. This meant that for just over four months I couldn't see my little girl. Well as you can probably imagine, this had a disastrous effect on my mental health and resulted in me having far more frequent and severe migraines than usual.

She came to visit a few weeks ago for the first time since March and let me tell you - the emotionally relief was staggering, but it's the physical one that's been most surprising. My migraines have been far less severe since - down a couple of notches on the scale of 1-10 than usual which means that I'm more active and far happier in myself. I've even been doing some kettle bell/weight training at home again!

All the medication aside, I do understand now how powerful your mental wellbeing can be and how much of an impact positive or negative changes can have on migraines. Take care of yourselves mentally - its so important.

Have a good weekend everybody and stay safe

Rich x

[bamboo89]

What a lovely photo... it is surprising how much stress and depression can affect our health. I'd been isolating due to cancer treatment long after lockdown was lifted, but I was so fatigued and got so depressed (almost suicidal)I ended up risking inviting my son over for dinner. I took all the right precautions, found the energy from somewhere to cook and wash up, and I felt a zillion times better after that, depression pushed back, more energy for a while. We do live in difficult times, currently...

I'm glad you can see your daughter again, even if not as often as you'd like...

Miriam

[Katya3 in reply to bamboo89]

Prior to lockdown I travelled quite a lot for work, train trips of 2 hrs at a time most weeks. Now I work from home and meetings take place by Zoom I have fewer migraines and also felt my body unseizing up from sitting in cramped positions on crowded trains and carrying a heavy rucksack. Could not possibly want lockdown to continue but I do hope we don't go back to the packed long distance travelling, And \I do agree that emotional stress triggers migraines. My adult children live miles away and we see little of each other due to present restrictions, but we text most days and send photos and share recipes. Every little contaxt helps

[bamboo89 in reply to Katya3]

There hasn't been a need for long distance travelling for a long time,other than on certain occasions. I have a friend who was required to regularly fly over to Singapore for an hour's meeting, what an absolute nonsense. If nothing else good comes out of this pandemic, I at least hope people (and businesses ) will recognise its more than time for change in that area...