The Mindful Migraine

Eye masks are possibly our most humble defense against migraine pain.  I suspect they’re probably our oldest too.  It’s not hard to imagine everyone from a caveman, to a Roman gladiator and a medieval babe in a beribboned cone-hat with an arm thrown across their face to keep the sun out of their eyes.  In fact, the crook of our elbow seems perfectly proportioned to rest across the bridge of our nose, just so.

The reason I’m writing about eye masks, is that last Sunday night, I had my first bad migraine in a couple of weeks.  [I’ll diagnose what I think went ‘wrong’ at the bottom of this post if you’re interested.] 

It was early evening in Australia, where it’s still Summer, so there was a lot of light coming into the room.  I put on my eye mask.  It’s a new one that I got for Christmas from my daughter, and I especially love it for the gesture of empathy that it portrays.  It’s made of a pretty-printed fabric, with a layer of foam inside.  The elastic strap is not too tight, not too loose.  And yet, I began to rage against this eye mask; the foam was too heavy and was making my eyebrows hurt even more than normal.  And yes, I am well aware of how ridiculous it sounds to rage against the weight of foam, but there it is.  This mask was just too heavy.

I debated whether I could be bothered to hunt down another mask.  I own several.  There’s a fluffy aqua panda one that I ‘borrowed’ from the kids – but I thought it would be too hot.  I knew I had a silky rose one somewhere – but it sits in a way that I can feel my eyelashes fluttering against the fabric and it’s distracting.  There’s a box of heat masks that someone bought back from China – but they get so hot I suspect they might be illegal.  I have a box of cold packs from another well-wisher – but I have never been great with anything too cold as it tends to give me an ‘ice-cream headache’.  There’s also a freebie that I got from a plane trip many years ago – but its elastic is weak, and even with a knot on the side it keeps falling off my head.

The heavy mask stayed.  At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up; migraine better, room dark and eye mask lost in the sheets.

As with all things migraine related, all you can do is keep trying.  What works today might not be so comfortable tomorrow.  What can you do but keep doing? 

Here’s hoping you have an eye mask that you love now and forever.

Linda x

PS – if you’re interested in buying equipment for chronic pain, there is a young lady who’s part of The Mindful Migraine community who recently started up her own blog to discuss her journey to healing and promote the equipment that has been working for her.  You can check out her blog here: Chronic Pain and Crazy Brain

[PPS – if you’re’ interested in what I think went ‘wrong’ with my migraine, here’s my quick analysis.  It has been at least two weeks since my last migraine, and last Sunday was a relaxing, productive, laughter-filled day.  There really was no obvious reason for a migraine to be triggered.  Everything was perfect, and then I sat down to watch the evening news, looked at my husband and said ‘uh oh’ and walked myself off to bed.  This time the ‘premonition’ the migraine was coming was in my stomach – it feels like there’s slimy old egg mixed with mercury in there.  Luckily, because of all the other mindful activities I have been practicing over the last few months, it only took half a triptan and three hours of sleep and I felt better.  In hindsight the only triggers I can come up with are: 1) the family got up early so I missed my regular Tai Chi stretches, 2) I walked the dogs at noon not early in the morning and I remember coming home early because it was hot, which must have had more of an effect on my body than I realized, and 3) when we were all hanging out in the backyard that afternoon it was hot and bright and I left my glasses and hat inside because we were only going out ‘for a minute’. which turned into 30 or 45.  I suspect these three small things combined to ruin my evening.  Sigh.  Migraines are glitchy-beasts, no doubt about it.]