Sometimes an hour or so after coming home from a heavy lifting session I experience what’s known as an occular migraine. It starts off as a blind spot right in the center of my field of view, then slowly becomes what looks like a brightly flashing, colorful strobe light in my field of view.
It lasts for around a half hour, and the first time it happened it scared the shit out of me, because I thought I was going blind after I googled it I realized that it’s not uncommon. It seems that it happens more when I use a stimulant before I lift.
Has anyone else experienced this and if so, what’s the best way to prevent it? (probably stop using stimulants before I lift right?)
Wow, never new they had a name. Have had many over the years. Always let them run their course. Usually occurred on squat or dead days. No advice just chimin’ in.
Yea, I had my 1st one about 8 years ago freshmen year of high school. Began lifting almost 9 years ago. Wasn’t until a month or 2 before graduating high school that I had my 2nd one. They became frequent during college. Went to a neurologist, who happened to be the most legitimate out of all the type of docs they sent me to. He prescribed me inderal, a beta-blocker which prevented epinephrine from binding to the smooth muscle in my heart and conversely lowered my blood pressure greatly…to the point of seeing stars while sitting down in class. It also altered my short-term memory which sucked since I was trying to do well in a bigger and harder college as a transfer. The medication worked, but sucked due to side effects.
What made them more frequent? Imbibing caffeine, monosodium glutamate (in chinese food), excessive spicy foods, dark liquor and beer (especially tequila & guiness), high intensity interval training/excessive lsd cardio at times, nuts, and a few other things. Funny thing is, most of these were a normal part of my life in high school and had NO effect on me at all. It took me until this year to figure out that the concussions I got jr. year of hs wrestling were what exaggerated migraines for me. You need to figure out what all your triggers are.
As for the research I’ve read, avoid taking Co-q-10 since it is way overpriced and is inferior from my experience. B-vitamins-- riboflavin, niacin and b-12 in particular are great, but also costly. The best thing I’ve found is to regularly take Vitamin D and Magnesium supplements, cheap, effective and most ppl are deficient anyways. Take those and be sure to get calcium from your diet–milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc since I don’t really feel the need to supplement calcium. Best and cheapest combo right there of all the crap I’ve experimented with. When you workout, be sure to get at least a gallon of fluid throughout the day. I did 5/3/1 boring but big very hard, 3x a week no problems as long as I followed what I outlined. BTW, my migraines are pretty rare now.
I may try accupuncture since it is a chronic condition for me. Who knows. Let me know if you have any more questions about them.
bench - Lifting headaches are not uncommon - usually in the under 30 crowd - but since yours is coming on after lifting there are as musselquest points out a bunch of potentially contributing factors.
if we were working together, i’d be looking at how you move, and how you lift. it may be nutritional; it may be related to your workout form that’s crunching up your neck, and building up pressure such that by the time you unwind, a headache has started. It may be that if you have any sinus pressure, your sphenoid bone can be a bit stuck too, and you need to learn a few swallowing technques to help eleviate the pressure.
So you might want to see someone who knows how to help YOU do a full assessment from all these factors to help you ACTIVELY keep yourself out of pain rather than relying on passive intervention for someone to stick needles in you.
As to musselquest - glad your pain is rare. that’s not a chronic condition tho, really. Chronic with pain generally means it’s constant, or so frequent as to be perceived to be constant. If you get migrains rarely, you just get migraines rarely. As for supplements, and suggesting them to otheres, well it’s great it workd for you, but whether it works for someone else depends on an entire nutrition, stress, rest profile - additional stuff not from food may or may not be warranted. More isn’t always better. Migraines are pretty individual. just fyi. and again way to go getting out of yours.
I’m not disagreeing with you -mc- that they are highly individual. Thanks for professional advice to those that need it early. As for the accupuncture, I wasn’t referring it to the OP rather throwing it out in confusion as to whether a “cure” exists at all. If there is one, I’d be down for it. The closest I came to a chronic condition was when I worked graveyard as a stock worker and had migraines every other night. A study not too long ago pointed out the body’s increase in cortisol that night workers experience (ding, ding!). At that point, I was told to go to a neurologist. All the previous docs did nothing because there wasn’t anything they COULD do in their power. I was given a pat on the back and the runaround.
Even with the neuro, I ended up tracking my own triggers at his suggestion, which is nothing webMD or those other bunk sites could’ve advised. Through trial and error I came up with the supplements which are 2.5x cheaper than the medications prescribed btw. OP, just track your own triggers and progress for sure, until you give us more info. The most significant stuff he did order was an MRI and then an EEG-which was done on site conveniently. I’m not knocking any of the professionals, just that it seems that with this problem, it is best to discover how your OWN body works around it as opposed to becoming another statistic reported. They say with men the problem occurs in about 5-8%, but those numbers may actually be higher with people who are too lazy/confused to go get help. I even had one of the docs admit they had their own attacks 4x/weekly.
Another piece of advice I like is in Dan John’s new article advising people to STOP-pt. #4. I think burning out your CNS can definately be a cause and doing things like lifting to failure (often) or doing HIIT often without recovery are just flat out bad. I find it crappy that jobs and military can give you the boot if you have these attacks. If a cure exists, tell us -mc- cuz I’m gettin’ curious.
PS-Sorry for hijacking the thread. I was in the process of making my own and then saw this in the appropriate forum.
Thanks for all the responses. Sharing info with others is always the best way to get the real answer. Unfortunately I don’t have insurance, so it’s been about 10 years since I’ve seen a doctor.
I was pre-med at university of Miami, and met many other pre-med students there and was turned-off by their attitudes. Most of them just wanted to make lots of money when they became doctors and had no real interest in the field of medicine. Unfortunately that type of person comprises the majority of practicing doctors. They just want to throw pills at you and rather not see your condition cured, but to continue treating you and peddling their drugs.