Migraines and Sleeping Habits

I am just wondering if anyone has noticed a correlation between their sleep habits and migraines.  I work nights and my schedule changes every week so there is never any consistency.  In the last several months, I have noticed that I almost always wake up with a migraine the morning after I work.  I usually get to sleep between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m. and only let myself sleep until 10:00 or 11:00 a.m.  At this point, that is just how my job is and I can't change the hours that I work.  My neurologist has mentioned in the past that he has many nurses as patients and that working nights seems to cause their migraines to increase.  At one point, he even said that he has one patient that he knew until she made job changes, was never going to be able to have quality of life.  I can't work days so I am stuck. 

I am just wondering if any of you have experienced this and if you have found any solutions.  I worked Monday night and soon after I fell asleep, I remember feeling a headache coming on.  I just couldn't make myself wake up and take my meds so by the time I did wake up at 10:30, it was horrible.  Two dose of Dilaudid, Relpax and one dose of prednisone later, I was better but absolutely wiped out.  I spent the rest of the day feeling exhausted.

I have wondered about just pre-medicating myself when I get home from work and before I go to sleep.  I had discounted this because I hated to take meds when I wasn't having a migraine every single time I worked.  Now, however, it seems like it is every time so I am wondering what you think about taking my meds before I go to sleep every time I work (which is usually only 2 times per week)?

 

There is definitely a correlation between migraines and sleeping habits for some people. I get migraines if I oversleep or dont get enough sleep or if my sleeping pattern changes (a lot of sleep one night and little sleep the next night).  It sounds like with your job being the way it is, you don't have control over your sleep patterns. 

Migraines also seem to have a cumulative effect for me where if I don't sleep enough and I'm really stressed all get one, but if I just don't sleep enough but everything else is in order, I may not get one.  I've been trying to reduce the medication I take for migraines by pinpointing and eliminating my migraine triggers (I recommend reading the book Heal Your Headache, it tells you how you can do this).

I'm also started taking Magnesium and it seems to have really helped my headaches.  Magnesium doeesn't help everyone, just about 50% of migraine sufferers.

I hope this helps!

Heather