Migraines causing depression/anxiety
Hi! Im a 20 year old college student and I can't remember having a completely headache free day. I know that I started experiencing headaches when I was around 12. I saw a neurologist last year and I started taking magnesium, CO-Q10 sumatriptan, and ondansetron. I also cut out caffeine (which never fails to shock everyone my age when i say I don't drink coffee). This worked a little but not really. In august I began taking amitriptyline but then I switched over to venlafaxine around november.
Ive done a lot of research recently in to the connection between depression/anxiety with migraines. I know that I'm not suicidal but, as I was reading through some articles about the signs/symptoms of depression/anxiety I couldn't help but identify with some of the points. I guess what Im wondering is if anyone else feels that somehow high-functioning depression has manifested itself through migraines or vice versa.
Hi paige,
Thank you for reaching out to us. Living with chronic head pain is exhausting and frustrating to say the least. Good to hear you are under a doctor's care.
The thing about migraine and depression is, they can be comorbid conditions. This means they can occur at the same time but don't cause one another. Migraine is thought to be a genetic, neurological disease, not a symptom of any other disease.
To make this more complicated, depression, mood issues, irritability can all be part of a migraine attack, due to the migraine process. Let me share information on this with you at this link; https://migraine.com/topic/prodrome-depressed-mood. This article will start you off with lots of information.
I've found it very helpful to talk to someone professionally as I live with migraine disease. Most of us aren't prepared to live with chronic illness and may have limited coping skills, I know I did. I've learned how to live with migraine disease with the help of my counselor. Does that make sense?
Let me know what you think,
Nancy
Nancy, I relate to Paige. I'm 52 and suffer from chronic migraine disease, trigeminal neuralgia, occipital neuralgia, and TMJ. I didn't realize that I had depression and anxiety until I was in my 40s. The anxiety is "When will the next one start?" "How long will it last, and how severe will it be?"
Depression set in because I wasn't the mother or wife I wanted to be. My migraines and other head pain were extremely severe. I had times I wanted to bang my head on a brick wall. I did have suicidal ideation at those moments. We had a system in our home. When I started going down that spiral, I had a pact with my daughter. She had major depressive disorder, and she would stay with me, and I would stay with her during her episodes. The rest of my family was also available to take care of us.
Now that I'm seeing a headache neurologist, I'm doing better. The severity of my headaches has been cut by about half. If I'm lucky, I might have a day or two without any symptoms in a month.
what a gift to each other that you and your daughter had each other to get through those tough moments of suicidal ideation. It's good to hear that the headache neurologist has helped. Can I ask what is helping you get those day or two without symptoms each month? Getting your headache severity cut in half sounds like it would be a relief. How is your daughter doing? Hopefully her depression is being well managed also. Sending you both gentle hugs. -- Warmly, Christine (Team Member)
