“I thought you said you couldn’t have caffeine?” says one friend as you order a rare (and very weak) coffee over a café catch up. Well, the thing about migraines is that it’s not black and white.
Migraines are usually not triggered by just one thing, but a build up of several triggers that then in combination mean you get a migraine. Having a square or two of chocolate might be fine on it’s own, but add to that a late night, a very bright sunny day, slight dehydration, and a stressful project at work and you may be in trouble. So how to avoid this kind of build up happening?
One solution that might help is to adopt the spoon theory that sufferers of chronic pain and fatigue sometimes use. The idea is that you have a set number of metaphorical spoons for the day and every action that you do that day will involve spending a certain number of spoons. It’s important that you don’t spend all of your spoons or else an attack or exhaustion is highly likely.
So reading a book might take one spoon. Going for a walk around town might be two spoons or more depending on how long the walk is. A sufferer will know how many spoons they can spend without triggering an attack of pain or running out of energy.
Well why not adopt the spoon theory for your migraines? Having a weak coffee might be two spoons. Being out in bright sunlight for an afternoon might be another two. Work out how many spoons you can safely spend and then always keep your spoon count below that number.
Anyone who has a condition which is ‘invisible’ can find it hard to explain why they can do something one day and then not the next. The spoon theory helps to explain why that is. You can of course tell every person who asks what triggers you’ve had that day so far and that you can’t take anymore, but on occasion you don’t want to go into all that much detail; you want to keep your privacy. The spoon theory lets you do that.
So, when your friends say “but I thought doing that gives you migraines”, tell them about the spoon theory and let them know how your spoon count for the day is doing. One day you might be fine to have a pizza with them – “I’ve only spent one spoon so far today”, while another day leaving the house might be pushing it too far – “I’ve only got one spoon left.” The spoon theory is a good way of letting your friends know what you can and can’t do without needing to go into lots of details.
DISCLAIMER – When using any medication, always read the label and make sure you keep all medicines out of reach of children. The information supplied within this online resource is brought to you by Imigran Recovery Tablets (contains sumatriptan) for migraine relief, from a variety of author sources including health care professionals, lifestyle experts and the general public. None of the published authors endorse any brands.
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