Are Exercise Induced Migraines A Myth?
The relationship between exercise and migraine is not at all clear. Some people are convinced that they experience exercise induced migraines. Others believe that exercise should be a part of your migraine relief strategy. The real evidence for either of these viewpoints is limited. It is difficult to know what to do for the best.
Keeping a migraine diary and trying to deduce what your particular migraine triggers are, can be a long drawn out and frustrating process. The real causes of migraine are still unknown and there is little scientific evidence of the links between these so called ‘triggers’ and the condition.
The problem is that we are all different and what we discover is necessarily anecdotal. I could find that, consistently, if I eat chocolate, a migraine follows the next day. So, I stop eating chocolate and reduce the frequency of my migraine. But that doesn’t constitute scientific evidence.
Someone else could stop eating chocolate and find it has no effect on their migraine. The same thing applies to our experience with exercise. My own migraine began as a child, at around the age of ten. I thought that my headaches were partly associated with swimming, but what was really going on? At that age, I was still unable to swim because I had never been very enthusiastic about it.
For me, it was as attractive as a visit to the dentist. Back then, pools were heavily chlorinated and I came to associate that smell with an unpleasant experience. I began to link the smell of the chlorine with the headache. But was that true? I have recently read that some people think the exertion of swimming, the aerobic aspect, is the cause. Also, stress is commonly thought to be a factor.
Was it because I found the whole experience stressful. Whatever the reality, in my mind, there was a link. That was many years ago and I am still not a fan of swimming. On the other hand, I was a regular runner for about fifteen years. I had many aches, pains and niggles, but never headaches. I also SCUBA dived for a similar period with no problems, apart from sinus pain in extremely cold water!
Is it a coincidence that I found both of these activities very mentally relaxing? I have just read about a study carried out at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden. They had twenty migraine sufferers follow a program of exercise using an exercise bike, over a three month period. Whilst all the participants became noticeably fitter, only one of them suffered a migraine that was associated with the exercise.
They concluded from this that there is little risk of increased migraine due to exercise. That seems to me, unconvincing and not very scientific. Surely more participants doing a variety of exercises are required to come to any conclusions. They now plan to go on and do a trial to find out if exercise is beneficial to migraine sufferers.
I won’t be awaiting the results with bated breath. Based on my own experience, I am left wondering if there is such a thing as exercise induced migraine or whether it is more to do with the way we think, because of a previous bad experience with exercise. How many of us have let one bad experience put us off exercise in general.
Given the lack of real evidence, we have to draw our own conclusions. I am firmly of the belief that exercise is good for all of us. It may not have a direct connection with alleviating migraine symptoms, but if you feel fitter, you feel better and more positive. It certainly can’t hurt. There are lots of different forms of exercise out there. I think it’s worth finding one that works for you.
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