Are Migraines An Adaptive/beneficial Process During Chronic High Stress

barefooter

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I used to very consistency get one migraine per week, up until a couple months ago. Overall I feel like my physical health and mental stability have really been declining over the last few months, which made me wonder something about the migraines I used to get so regularly. Is it possible they were some kind of adaptive process in my chronically stressed state? Of course, I was never happy to have them, but overall I did feel much better when I was getting them regularly. Could it be possible that it was a sudden release of built up serotonin, which ultimately was keeping my levels lower throughout the week, and my mood better?
 

tara

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I once come across a hypothesis about epileptic seisures possibly having some kind of protective effect - IIRC via using up excessive excitotoxic neurotransmitters. No idea where I read that or how to find it again or whether there was evidence to support it.
Since migraines seem to have some features in common with epileptic seisures, maybe there is some relevance.
For the first few year when I had migraines I used to feel pretty good for a few days after they passed. I don't reliably get that anymore now.
 

itsALLgood

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That's definitely a plausible hypothesis. Migraines essentially force you to lay down in your bed (at least in my case, they are very severe), and remove yourself from any external stimuli (light, sound, movement, food..). Dr. Turknett (The Migraine miracle) and Dr. Buchholz (Heal your headache) both talk about how everyone has a "migraine threshold" which determines the amount of stress one's body is capable of being subject to before it triggers the whole "migraine process" forcing the individual to remove himself from said stress. How sensitive you are determines your threshold and this seems to be genetic. Truknett talks about using a ketogenic diet to raise your threshold level so that things don't trigger migraines as often. Buchholz talks about avoiding "migraine triggers" to do the same (avoiding certain specific foods like red wine and chocolate, along with avoiding pain meds).

I've noticed myself that when I'm really stressed out (going through a break up, exams) I seem to have less migraines for a while and then get them really bad once the stress levels out. I never associated the lack of migraines contributing to my level of stress, I saw it more the other way around (stress from outside sources was forcing myself subconsciously to stop migraines from preventing me from dealing with the stress). I haven't noticed that I feel more stressed out when I go through periods of having less migraines. But I get them 2-3 times a week, sometimes more so it's hard to tell what's causing what. They don't seem to have much consistency to them - I'll go two weeks without one and then two weeks with them every day, without changing my routine.

I'd be interested to see what people say about the release of serotonin. Many migraine meds are thought to work by messing with serotonin in one way or another but the medical community doesn't seem to be very clear on how or why that works (what else is new?!).

Why do you think the migraines have subsided? How has your physical health and mental stability been declining in the past few months?
 

tara

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itsALLgood said:
I'd be interested to see what people say about the release of serotonin. Many migraine meds are thought to work by messing with serotonin in one way or another but the medical community doesn't seem to be very clear on how or why that works (what else is new?!).
Ditto. Having googled a bit, I still don't know what sumatriptan etc does to serotonin.
 
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barefooter

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itsALLgood said:
Why do you think the migraines have subsided? How has your physical health and mental stability been declining in the past few months?

I really don't know, but I suspect it was the extreme stress I was under. I was traveling with my now ex gf, on what ended up being a very dysfunctional two month trip in SE Asia. I was also eating a lot of PUFA. I actually had a very minor migraine yesterday in the same location as my previous usual ones. It's interesting, because I've been getting a lot better the last week, and now my migraine returns in a very small way. Maybe related, who knows, we'll see if it becomes regular (hopefully not).
 
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Perhaps if for example the depressed condition is simply the consequence of a chronic excitotoxic state, then of course this "honeymoon" period would make you feel a lot better (save for head aches) than after the body has run out of resources to deal with the stresses that caused the excitotoxicity in the first place.
 

blob69

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I used to very consistency get one migraine per week, up until a couple months ago. Overall I feel like my physical health and mental stability have really been declining over the last few months, which made me wonder something about the migraines I used to get so regularly. Is it possible they were some kind of adaptive process in my chronically stressed state? Of course, I was never happy to have them, but overall I did feel much better when I was getting them regularly. Could it be possible that it was a sudden release of built up serotonin, which ultimately was keeping my levels lower throughout the week, and my mood better?

Hi barefooter, I thought I'd chime in because it seems I have the exact same problem. When my metabolism falls very low I become apathetic, depressed, without motivation and energy, but get no migraines. When I take T3 or implement other measures that raise metabolism, all my symptoms get better, apart from the migraine which begins to appear immediately and can even get awfully bad at times (throwing up etc).

However, I don't think my serotonin is higher when I have migraines, because my labs (like high prolactin) and serotonin-related symptoms all get better. Maybe it's a drop in serotonin that Peat mentioned could be triggering a migraine?

It's really confusing and I wish I knew the explanation. If you've learned anything about it in the mean time, do tell please.
 

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