What your triggers may be telling you…

As if you still had any doubt, your triggers may confirm whether you have migraine or a tension headache.  Clinical Psychiatry News came up with a list of what triggers seemed to cause what type of attack.  Tension and migraine have some in common.  For example, if you’re not getting enough sleep, or if you skip a meal, you could find yourself with either a tension headache or a migraine attack.  Weather changes are also prime suspect for both.

But several triggers seem to hit migraineurs a lot worse.  Take for example the sleep issue – oversleep is a killer for me and many others.  But it rarely causes tension headache.  Foods, odours and hormonal changes are also common migraine triggers.

These are reminders again that migraine is simply not just another headache (it’s often not a headache at all, in fact!).  There are very different things taking place in the body with either headache.  This is why there are generally much better treatments for migraine than just your over the counter painkillers.

This study came to my attention in Elaine Magee’s Tell Me What To Eat if I have Headaches and Migraines.