self help
Be Your Own Advocate
Blinded by the Light
Strategies for avoiding the brightest migraine triggers
By Arianna Hermosillo
IT’ S THAT MOMENT when you’ re driving and the oncoming driver hits the brights. Or when you’ re in the grocery store and the beaming fluorescent lights force you to wince in the cereal aisle. Many migraineurs know all too well how lighting can trigger an attack.
In fact, light sensitivity( also known as“ photophobia”) is probably the most common sensitivity that migraineurs face, affecting anywhere from 66 to 88 percent of migraineurs.“ It’ s even more common than nausea and sensitivity to sound,” says Vincent Martin, MD, vice president of the National Headache Foundation and professor of medicine at the University of Cincinnati.
Though it may not be possible to control all lighting in your environment, you can make your surroundings more bearable by better understanding how light can impact migraine.
THE MIGRAINEUR’ S REACTION
Migraineurs are generally more sensitive to triggers( such as light) than the average person, says Robert Kaniecki, MD, director of The Headache Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
“ The migraine brain is fundamentally sensitive to multiple different sensory stimuli,” Dr. Kaniecki says. Although light may top the list, you might also struggle with sensitivity to certain smells or sounds, and these can trigger a migraine.
Although researchers have not yet concluded exactly how light triggers migraine, Dr. Kaniecki attributes some of the connection to pain and light signals that converge upon the brain, which then processes the signals together.
For many migraineurs, light doesn’ t just trigger migraine pain— it may also make an existing migraine worse.“ Your hypersensitive brain becomes even more sensitive during a headache or migraine,” Dr.
14 HEAD WISE | Volume 2, Issue 2 • 2012