For people with migraine exercise can be a trigger. But when managed right it can also be a treatment

Anna Auban was your typical sporty 14 year old when exercise suddenly started to cause extreme pain in your head.

“As a pretty sporty kid with sporty friends at a sporty school, I used to row, swimming, netball and basketball. I basically had to say goodbye to all of that,” Awburn said.

“After swimming training, I just have this dazzling pressure in my head… it’s become impossible to play netball.

After a series of tests excluding a family history of brain tumors, Ms. Awburn was diagnosed with chronic, persistent daily headache, a type of chronic migraine.

Like many people who live with migraines, exercise often results in the attacks of Ms Awburn, 15 years after she first experienced it.

“Exercise is really difficult. Especially in my early 20s, I was hit up to 25 times a month. I was basically bedbound like I couldn’t do anything,” Awburn said.

“One day I went for a nice walk and then I was able to get better, or I could sleep for the next two or three days. You really don’t know.

Exercise “double-edged sword” for people living with migraines

For many people like Ms. Awburn, who live with migraines, movements have been reported as a trigger for attacks despite limited research to back up reports.

One study by the Journal of Headache and Pain found that 38% of participants reported exercise as a trigger for the attack.

Fifty-six percent of participants reported that the attack was launched during exercise, but that the attack began more than two hours after exercise stopped.

However, research also shows that exercise can be prescribed as a non-medical treatment that may reduce the frequency of pain and improve the intensity and duration of attack.

Certified exercise physiologist Emily Cordes lives with chronic migraines, but has firsthand experience.

“In the first year or so I live with chronic migraines, I personally find that I can’t actually exercise without causing an attack, and that all sorts of different things can cause an attack,” Cordes said.

“To be honest, it felt like a bit of a nightmare.”

Now Ms. Cordes works with a “massive number” of people who live with migraines, and she said it was a complicated relationship.

“Even if you feel that exercise is the trigger for a migraine attack, it may not be the entire story,” Cordes said.

“They are exercising in the sun and they may be either the heat is causing it, they may be dehydrated while exercising, or they may not be eating recently, and their glucose levels drop during exercise.

trial and error

Medical research on migraines has improved recently, but it is still limited and the way in which you experience attacks is very different.

In her personal experience, Cordes said that exercise can sometimes stop attacks, but it’s best to try out what works for each individual.

“When I work with a client with a migraine, I tend to say. If your pain is around 5 out of 10 levels, you might want to go for a walk and just experiment,” she said.

“If the pain is already over five out of 10, it’s better to rest on a day when you don’t have migraine symptoms.

“Don’t hurry up with this… exercise should be fun too. So, get smaller and slowly build, trying to find a way to do something fun.”

As for Ms Awburn, she can already see the difference since working with a Canberra exercise physiologist last year.

“I’ll touch Wood, but I don’t think I’ve been hit with that much since I started this program with Haley. [exercise physiologist]So I definitely notice more strength on my back and neck,” Auban said.