Seattle’s weather matches my headaches today. Wind gusts challenge the trees. They’re holding up so far, but I’m sure many plants won’t make it through the day. Just like I won’t make it through the day without the severe pain I’ve felt intermittently all morning taking me down.
A 100% chance of rain is a given with daily headaches. Some days I’m blessed with a drizzle of pain. Others a bad migraine is sure to strike.
Today’s unlike Seattle’s usual pattern. The secret that Seattleites don’t want others to know is that it does rain every day, but normally it’s a drizzle. The past couple weeks have brought heavy rains and flooding.
I’d love for my headache patterns to match typical Seattle rains. The last two months I’ve had little reprieve from daily deluges.
Beyond the metaphorical, the two are often connected. I’m not sure about other headache types, but studies have shown that weather is a migraine trigger. The biggest culprits: A combination of high or low temperatures and humidity, major changes over one or two days, high or low air pressure, changes in air pressure.
While you can’t control the weather, you can minimize its impact by checking forecasts and reducing or avoiding controllable triggers (stress, too little sleep, skipping meals, etc.) when weather conditions look bad.
At least that’s what all the articles and websites say. I’ve never tracked it and have no relevant anecdotes. All I know is that I don’t want to be imprisoned by another ungovernable variable.
I have something that worked for the last two days!! Astelin HCI. For the past two weeks St. Louis has been experiencing record rain and turbulent storms and I’ve had headaches that remind me of caffeine withdrawals…lots of crackling from pressure (you all know what I mean). The’ve been so bad, I’ve gotten little relief from even hydrocodone. It’s the only thing thats really worked so far. Let’s hope it continues. Hope this offers some of you relief. This is certainly less dramatic than moving…Chicago is a pretty cool town.
Tanya
Hi there, found your blog by doing a Google search for “migraine art.”
My family calls me “the human barometer” and will even ask me in the morning if it will rain in the afternoon, based on my migraine or lack thereof.
I wanted to ask you, do you know much about that area west of you, around Port Washington, where there is the “rain shadow?” Ever since I investigated where there might be a place to live where there are fewer changes in barometric pressure, I have been mulling over a move to that area. Have you ever heard of people living there for their health?
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I’m not familiar with Port Washington. The Olympic Peninsula is west of Seattle and there are spots there with little rain and, I believe, relatively steady barometric pressure. Sequim is the town I’m thinking of, Port Townsend may also be good.
I hope this helps a little bit. Best of luck finding a place to live where you’ll have less pain.
K
I’ve always suspected that wild swings in barometric pressure gave me extra “bonus” migraines… and now I’m able to prove it. We have a network of school-based weather stations here, and one is less than a block from our house. They track barometric pressure (among many other things) and post graphs on their website.
The other day… when we’d had horrendous winds, and I’d had a horrendous migraine… my husband called up the barometric pressure chart from our local school on his laptop. I laid out the path my migraine had taken… from the first “hmmm, i feel kinda ‘grainey” to where it was unbearable to where it tapered off. The key points matched exactly where the barometric pressure started falling, plummeted dramatically, and then eased off and started to rise again.
I’m sure you must have a weather station there whose data you could check… just out of interest. (I’d suggest Environment Canada, but I know you’re in the States!)
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What a great resource. Someone mentioned in another comment that weather.com has something similar.
K
Changes in weather are a surefire migraine trigger for me. My headache is much worse the day (or 12 hours) before it rains. Once the front has arrived, I start to do better.
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I hope you live somewhere without a lot of rain! 🙂
K
My migraines definitely are worse when the weather is horrible. I used to live in Wenatchee – never really had a problem there – normal weather patterns. Now I’m in the Chicago area. Nothing normal about the weather patterns here, let me tell you. As soon as my kids are off to college, I’m off to trying to find a stable environment. Good luck, I know, as everywhere is changing, but I have GOT to try – with or without the hubby (LOL).
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That sucks!
K
Funny you should bring this up–I live in Victoria and although my headaches are not migraines, they feel different–more “migraine-like”?–and are frequently much worse on days of intense low pressure systems, like yesterday and today.
For people who are interested, the Weather Channel has an “aches and pains” forecast at http://www.weather.com/activities/health/achesandpains/?from=healfl
The forecast is rated on a scale of 1-10 for its potential for causing weather-related pain.
Christine
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I hope you have some headache relief with today’s weather. And thanks for sharing that link.
K