Overview
Pregnancy- One Of The Causes Of Migraine
No one is exempt from migraines and women are
especially prone so it’s just a matter of averages to expect that
migraines will affect pregnancies. Women should naturally be concerned
about taking medications during pregnancy, whether over the counter or
prescription, and since most people turn automatically to medication to
treat the severe headaches caused by migraines, it’s doubly important to
be aware of the consequences of taking migraine medication during
pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the plain fact of the
matter is that the effects of most headache medications on pregnant
women and their unborn children still remains in the dark. Because of
this uncertainty, women who suffer from migraines really need—when
possible, of course—to work their migraine relief into their pregnancy
plan right from the beginning, even before conception. Most experts in
migraine prevention and relief strongly advise a slow tapering off
medication prior to attempting to conceive. A slow tapering off means
about a week, by the way, not several months.
Of course, many
women suffer from headaches far too extreme to even consider tapering
off their medication. If this is the case with you, it is highly
recommended that before attempting to become pregnant you make an
appointment with your doctor and to talk over the risks of sticking with
your medications while pregnant. It’s been well established that some
medications such as Depakote have caused birth defects, but many other
preventative medications such as beta-blockers and tricyclics have been
proven relatively safe. If you’re taking drugs by injection, like
Imitrex, you’ll definitely have to stop taking it because there just
simply isn’t enough evidence of its safety during pregnancy.
Since
most birth defects occur during the first few months of life, often
before the mother even realizes she is pregnant at all, it is not a good
idea to wait until confirming the pregnancy before making decisions on
medication and pregnancy.
Of course, there is more to pregnancy
and migraines than just being careful with medication. Pregnancy means
food cravings and food cravings means eating things you don’t normally
eat, or least eating them in a bulk you don’t normally eat them in. Food
and food additives are major league triggers of migraines so when
pregnant, be sure to be careful about what you eat. In particularly,
avoid foods high in MSG and stay away from strong aged cheeses, which
are well known triggers for migraine attacks. It couldn’t hurt to avoid
low blood sugar by eating complex carbohydrates rather than refined
sugars. On the other hand, when using sugar substitutes be sure to stay
away from aspartame (NutraSweet).
Generally speaking, a woman who
doesn’t have any other health problems besides migraines probably
doesn’t run any special risk. On the other hand, if your first migraine
onsets during pregnancy, it is vitally important to get to a doctor so
that he can rule out any other dangerous conditions such brain
hemorrhage, meningitis, or even tumors. Further testing may be needed to
determine the cause of the headache.
Migraine treatment during
pregnancy tends to be of the medical alternative variety such as the use
of cold packs, darkened room, and sleep. Although caffeine is one of the
trickiest of all food-related migraine triggers to deal with, taking it
in small doses during the first trimester is usually safe, as is the use
of acetaminophen in small doses.
When it comes to both pregnancy
in general and migraines in general, one of the best thing you do to is
to relieve the amount of stress in your life. Yes, it’s very easy to say
you’re going to reduce stress and it’s altogether something else to
actually do it, but if you can take small steps here and there to reduce
or eliminate tension-causing elements from your life, you’ll be
surprised at the effect it has on your migraines. Not to mention the
effect it will have on your pregnancy.
One last thing to be aware
of concerning pregnancy and migraines. Patients are often giving
hormones to induce labor and this frequently causes migraines. Labor is
painful enough without adding migraine pain to it so be sure your
delivery care person knows you are prone to migraines before the
decision is made to induce labor.