Ugh! I just need some reassurance that I won't regain all of the weight I lost in a few weeks of inactivity.
I have frequent, debilitating migraines. The degree and duration vary, and sometimes I can go for a month or more without having one. When one occurs, it usually lasts 2-3 days, where most of that time I am utterly useless to myself, family, etc. But once I feel better, I get right back on track with life. This cycle has been ongoing for my entire adult life. I'm excruciatingly Type A personality, so it is very hard for me to be still and "unproductive".
But now I've had a migraine for 11 days. I take migraine meds, but they never work. I'm convinced they are placebo...lol. No meds work, yadda yadda, nothing works, I just have to ride it out. But eleven days is freaking killing me! Any moment I feel remotely better I spend catching up with my family, job, 3 dogs, etc. I can't work out AT ALL if I even have a tinge of a headache, because it will spiral into a migraine.
So what to do?? I've tried lowering my calories per day to maintenance, about 1700, but I feel weak from hunger. Or maybe it's from the migraine? Dunno. I would give anything to work out. I love it and it is my release. So basically I am going crazy right now, and all I can think about it losing muscle tone and gaining weight. Besides the basic silliness of that, this is a condition I will have forever. I've got to find a way to deal without making myself feel worse about not working out, etc.
Well my first instinct would be to tell you to go to a doctor pronto, but it seems like you are well in-tune with your body and so if you feel like this isn't an emergency that is your call.
I wouldn't be too worried about gaining the weight back right now, I would be worried about getting healthy. Maybe the migraine is a way of your body telling you to take it easy for a bit? Try eating more and resting. My Mom suffers from chronic migraines as well, and the only thing that helps her is absolute silence and darkness. I know it is different for each person, but what I would do is just focus on pampering your body and trying to get it back into working order before you worry about your weight. Eat wholesome, unprocessed foods (as much as you can, I know that migraines can make people not want to eat- at least from my experience. I know it is different for everyone). Drink lots of water.
I hope you feel better! And if it makes you feel any better about the whole situation, when I was in high school I came down with mono for a month and put my diet on hold. I wasn't monitoring what I ate and was sure I was going to gain tons of weight. However, I just focused on taking care of my body, and after I was healthy again I weighed myself and realized I hadn't gained an ounce!
I have arthritis, fibromyalgia, autoimmune issues and a handful of other health issues that can put me "out of commision" for anywhere from a day or two per month, to a month. Sometimes it throws me a little off routine (and I only have to make mild adjustments to my schedule) other times, it's full-on, in-bed-all-day-for-a-week, hubby-has-to-take-care-of-me, barely-lift-my-head kind of days.
What I find helpful is having not only a back-up plan, but lots of back-ups to the back-ups (plan A, B, C, D, E ... on down the line as far as I have to).
When I started my weight loss journey, I was almost bed-ridden. I spent most of the day in bed, exhausted. Slowly I increased the amount of time I spent up, then the amount of time I did more....
And it wasn't a linear process, there were a lot of ups and downs. Even now, if I don't take care of myself and follow my schedules, and adjust to the curve balls life throws, I can end up in a pain, fatigue, and brain fog flare that wipes me out. Right now I'm recovering from a 9 day trip to visit family in Illinois. I tried to be careful, but the change in routine wiped me out, and I'm only now (about two weeks later) starting to feel like I'm getting back to my "normal" self.
You just have to experiment to see what works best for you. I find that I can't really modify my diet too much when I'm "down" or it takes longer to get back up. For example, when I'm sick I crave carby comfort-foods, but they're also the foods that tend to prolong and worsen my symptoms. If I indulge, it has to be in very small quantities, or I have to make (or ask hubby to make) lower-carb versions (for example mashed potatoes are a favorite "sick food" so hubby will make me mashed cauliflower with just enough potato flakes - I taught him the recipe - to taste like real mashed potatoes).
I don't eat a lot of frozen dinners, but I keep a few on hand (reading the nutrition labels to choose the healthiest I can find) so that when I'm not up to cooking, I have options that don't sidetrack or sabotage my efforts.
I also take advantage of other easy-to-prepare foods on those days. I love greek yogurt, and like it sweetened (but not as sweet as the flavors in the store) so I buy a quart of it, sweeten it with either sugar free pudding mix or with a spash of almond extract and some splenda). I do it once, so I can just "scoop and go."
I also don't usually eat cereal (most are too high carb for me), but I do eat it when I'm sick because it's fast. I add dry tvp (soy granules) and nuts to cold cereals or to oatmeal - to brings down the glycemic load - and yet it's ready to eat.
I'll also eat nuts... and other snackable foods (I use an exchange plan, even when I'm sick, because otherwise I can comfort-food myself into thousands of calories before I know it).
I'm not as strict calorie or carb-wise if I'm really feeling miserable, but because it's something I have to deal with on a regular basis, I can't afford to "let it go" too far from my normal eating habits (especially since "treat" foods tend to make me sicker, longer).
I think experimenting is all you can do, though, because everyone has different trigger foods, and different "feel better" and "feel worse" foods.
I don't usually force myself to exercise when I'm feeling ill or achey, because it usually backfires. However sometimes, exercise can help (I've learned to tell which symptoms I can exercise with, and which I can't - but it was a slow learning process).
Unfortunately, I think experimenting is the only option, because different people have different experiences.
Thank you! I think for me, I sometimes just think it will never get better, no matter what I do. But I have only tried one migraine med. I made a doctors appointment, and I'm going to be assertive about trying something new and really developing a plan to deal with this long term. No more muddling through...
I'm glad you're going to the dr! I know that sometimes there is just nothing they can do, but when it's that debilitating I'd think that there'd be SOMETHING they could do to try to make it manageable.
Thank you! I think for me, I sometimes just think it will never get better, no matter what I do. But I have only tried one migraine med. I made a doctors appointment, and I'm going to be assertive about trying something new and really developing a plan to deal with this long term. No more muddling through...
A lot of people feel this way, and sometimes it can take years to find the best medication or combination of medications to manage chronic medical conditions.
I met a lot of people in a local fibromyalgia support group who had given up on finding any medications (or at least prescription medications) because the first couple medications they tried had side effects they couldn't tolerate, or didn't work. They concluded too earlly that "nothing helps."
I've also met people who took their doctor literally when the doctor said "there's nothing (more) I can prescribe for the pain," when they reallly mean "I don't want to give you anything else" (and sometimes it seems they're thinking - your pain can't be that bad, suck it up).
My husband I learned the hard way, that some doctors will say "there's nothing..." or "you'll just have to learn to live with it," when they really mean "if you complain about it at least three appointments in a row, I'll prescribe a medication you can try."
We also found out the hard way, that the best doctors are those that have experienced chronic illness themselves or of a family member. The best doctors I've ever had were a neurologist whose brother died in a motorcycle accident as a result of narcolepsy (the man knows more about fibromyalgia and sleep disorders than any doc I've ever had) and a general practitioner who has chronic pain and blood sugar issues himself and has a chronically ill wife (I don't know what she has, just that she has it from things he's said). He and his wife have had to struggle in finding the right meds, so he encouraged me to keep trying different meds, even when some didn't work.
It's taken me seven years to find the best combinations of meds (at least best so far), but don't let that discourage you. I'm not saying that "it took seven years to find something that worked." That's not the way it was.
Instead, I'd find something that helped, but my doctor or I decided there might be a drug or drug combination might work better, so we tried that.
I'm now on a drug regimen that I think works pretty well. I was very hesitant to add the last drug (an antidepressant) because I didn't feel depressed and I thought I was on too many serotonin affecting medications already, and I really thought that my pain was being controlled as best it could be. I didn't think I could get any better without risking bad side effects, but my doctor persuaded me to give it a try, because I was still having a lot of winter-time pain, and some pretty severe pmdd symptoms (which I've always had).
Turns out it was a godsend.
Now of course, my meds won't address your migraines, but the principle is the same - you may have to try a few meds and med combinations to find what works best for you. Find a doctor you trust, who respects your input, and together work on finding ways to help you feel better more consistently.
I highly, highly recommend a symptom journal like HealthMinder (the previous title was Healthminder). It's a symptom, trigger, and diet log. You don't even have to buy it, just go on amazon.com use the "look inside" feature and use it as inspiration on what symptoms, variables you might want to track.
You may be able to find tracking systems online as well. I'm currently experimenting with flare-tracking software on the website "Flare watch" but it's geared toward autoimmune disease." I like that it tracks weather (at least in certain countries) because weather is one of my triggers (I usually get sick right before the wether changes, so it's obviously not psychosomatic).
I don't know a lot about migraines, but I do know there can be dietary and environmental triggers.
With many (perhaps most) chronic health/pain issues, you often just have to keep experimenting to find what works best. It's hard to keep experimenting when you don't always see dramatic improvement, but it can pay off. I definitely went through times when I thought there was nothing I could do, but I'm glad I kept experimenting, because while I still have bad days, they're fewer and less severe than when I started (dramatically). If I had given up, I'm not sure I could have survived. I could have easily overdosed on pain medication, if I hadn't had a doctor willing to help me find meds that worked (not because I wanted to hurt myself, but because I was so desperate to end the pain).
I never was tempted to take more medication than my doctor prescribed, until I had a chronic pain issue. Luckily, I never was desperate enough to be more than tempted, but if I hadn't had a doctor willing to help me try medications, I think I might have crossed that line. Or I might have started mixing medications and alcohol. When you're desperate, you consider desperate actions).
I had heard about people with chronic migraine receiving botox injections. Don't know much about it but I just thought I'd mention it. I do hope you feel better, though. I don't have migraines but I am having a wicked toothache right now, so I can sympathize. I also agree with kaplods about pestering your doc until you find something that works. I had an autoimmune process that lasted about 5-6 years that had a fibromyalgia sydrome associated with it. Turns out the thing that helped me the most was a simple muscle relaxer taken at night that mimicked a tricyclic antidepressant. I finally got a more restful sleep and started to have less pain. Had I not persisted, I might not have received help. Be your own advocate, and I hope you feel better soon.
Chronic illness...diet and exercise?
