Migraine and Anxiety.

[RonnieDrew]

Hi,

Does anyone experience massive anxiety with migraine attacks.

I lost the sight in right eye in accident 40yrs ago. Have excellent sight but migraine with aura in good eye 22 years. Increased incidence recently after lot of stress.

Driving me up the wall.

What to do. Any ideas.

[bamboo89]

It's likely no comfort to tell you that if you had two good eyes, the visual disturbance would be in both of them anyway...

Like you, I suffered increasing visual disturbance till they were often one a day, sometimes 2 or 3 in a day - my form of migraine is more aura migraine, because I would only get a severe headache if I had 2 or 3 in a day - with only one, I'd barely notice the headache. I managed to remain fairly relaxed about it (knowing that stressing about it and not getting sufficient sleep doesn't help) but it did interfere with my life, I was frightened to drive anywhere I couldn't pull over in 3 minutes and park up for about 40 minutes if a visual disturbance started, and 2 or 3 in a day would make me feel quite ill.

All I can tell you is I don't get them any more; I used to have almost a cheese addiction and ate a great deal of it, but I gave up all dairy for another reason, and to my shock, 4 months later I realised I hadn't had a single visual disturbance. I do still crave cheese, and as a test, I had cheese two days apart - bingo, visual disturbance about a day or two later after the second lot of cheese. So, love it though I do, dairy is completely off the menu - I use soya milk, have non dairy coconut yoghurt and rarely eat any cheese at all, though I do still use a little butter with no problem, and will have a slice of cake which likely has some milk or butter in it, again with no problem. I can even eat a cream cake occasionally, despite the dairy content, without trouble, it mostly seems to be cheese that's the main culprit. But occasionally, I will give in and have a single piece of thinly sliced cheese on toast or a cheese sandwich - and there is a price to pay, because the next day I feel 'migrainey'; off colour, photophobic and as if I'm about to have a visual disturbance, so I really try not to eat it, ever.

The point of telling you all this is, you may be consuming something on a regular basis that is causing/contributing to your condition - if I had not given up dairy for another health reason, I never would have known that was the cause for me, so perhaps try cutting out the obvious culprits (cheese and chocolate and red wine I think are main contenders).

Miriam

[RonnieDrew in reply to bamboo89]

Miriam. Thank you so much. Your post was most helpful and very interesting. 1 have to admit that I had been eating quite a lot of feta cheese recently. I wonder?

Glad you are well now.

Thx again,

Ronnie.

[bamboo89 in reply to RonnieDrew]

Hmm, well that;s an obvious one isn't it.... try not eating any cheese or dairy for 2 or 3 months - if it makes no difference, then at least you'll know and can start eating it again and exclude something else instead.

Good luck

Miriam