Migraine Triggers vs Migraine Causes - What's the difference?

Triggers and causes tend to get interchange, but there is actually a massive difference between a migraine trigger and the causes of migraines.

What exactly is a trigger and also what are the causes? A trigger is something that exactly triggers a migraine attack. It will initiate a migraine attack, but the causes of a migraine are the things that help to increase your sensitivity towards building migraine attacks.

The causes of things are the underlying issues that we need to work on to actually decrease your sensitivity so that a migraine trigger can actually come along and trigger an event. Remember that your migraine attacks are different to the next migraine attacks and your causes might be different to the next person's causes, then there's not actually anything that you can initiate.

There's not actually anything that you can trigger anymore. So bananas, is just a banana, chocolate is just chocolate and coffee is just coffee. If we think about something like stress, then a stressful event is considered a trigger, but if you have repeated or prolonged exposure to stress, that is already a cause. If you have a bad night's sleep, then that is a trigger.

But if you have terrible sleep or it always takes you forever to fall asleep like having interrupted sleep, you are always waking up tired, you don't get eight hours of sleep, you are constantly getting five hours of sleep, then bad sleep is a cause. This is increasing your sensitivity towards getting migraine attacks.

If you are sensitive to something like chocolate or one food or a couple of different foods, then these are migraine triggers. They initiate an attack. But if you have poor gut health or overall you've just got a shocking diet, you are filled with processed foods and junk food, and you're not getting your fresh fruit and vegetables in, then this is contributing to the cause of your migraines. It's increasing that inflammation. You're not getting your nutrients in there and you can't possibly get your supplements happening in there like your magnesium and your B vitamins because your gut health isn't healthy. So that's contributing to the cause of your migraines. 

If we're constantly focused on the triggers, then we're not actually getting towards the cause of the migraines. Therefore you're susceptible to pretty much any and all triggers. So we always wanna be aiming to address the causes of your migraines.

The causes of your migraines are probably different to the causes of the next people's migraines. We're all different. We're all unique. We've all lived different lives. We've gotta make sure the treatment is targeted individually to each individual. That's how we're making the biggest change.

Obviously looking at triggers can be really important because if you can identify some really obvious triggers, then it can make your migraine journey easier. We also need to identify those causes so that we can aim for those long-term results, which is obviously what we do here at Melbourne Headache Solutions. 

If you've got any questions or queries call us on reception at (03) 9486 7543 and make an appointment with one of our expert practitioners and get started on your journey today towards a life unburdened by neck pain and headaches today. You can also book here