I am the kind of person that needs to know why. This is why I have thought a lot about the cause of my migraines. Part of me wants to know so that I can stop them and part of me wants to know just because!
One of my theories is that initially my thyroid started to fail. Then as a result of that, my periods started to come every three weeks and were a bit heavier. That resulted in my body slowly being depleted of iron. The combination of my body being under stress from the thyroid failing as well as the low iron caused my brain to not function properly and also caused my migraines to increase dramatically.
Once I found out that my iron was low I researched what symptoms were caused by low iron . Some of the symptoms that I experienced were tiredness, being out of breath during slight physical exertion, feeling as if I couldn't get a deep enough breath even while sitting, very obvious vertical lines/ridges in my fingernails, night sweats, not sleeping well, lowered mental functioning and heart palpitations. I've learned that heart palpitations are NOT your heart beating irregularly but it IS a sense that you are feeling your heartbeat more strongly. The problems that I had with physical activity became pretty severe. I like to garden and I eventually started to do things while sitting in a lawn chair. Pretty humorous to shovel dirt while sitting! I've written before that going up one flight of stairs required me to spend a few minutes catching my breath. As indicated by the title of this blog, I also experienced headaches, migraines to be exact.
I've read many times that low iron can cause headaches. I've also read occasionally that low iron can cause migraines. I've also read that iron plays many roles in your body. This includes a role in making your brain function properly. Recently doctors have realized that during migraines the neurons in your brain fire out of control. Obviously a sign that your brain is certainly NOT functioning properly!
One of the interesting things is that my iron was not extremely low. Initially when I was diagnosed with low iron the only number that was out of range was my iron saturation. It was 12% and the acceptable range is 15%-50%. I was not considered anemic although those numbers were on the lower end of the range. The ferritin is the number that the doctor seems to watch. My ferritin was 17 and the acceptable range is 10-232. I've heard of many people with a much lower number. My doctor told me that he would like to see this number between 60 and 80. After starting to take iron, in two months my ferritin went up to 40. I was happy but felt that it would continue to rise. Its been six more months and my ferritin has not gone up, it still hovers around 40.
Although a lot of my symptoms have subsided to some degree I am not 100% back to where I was before all this started. Some of my symptoms are still totally with me like the ridges in my fingernails. I look at them all the time and wonder if they are getting just a bit better. Somehow, they seem to be the thing that I watch as my indication that my body still is not right. I feel that when they are gone I will be better. I would love to see my ferritin increase to at least 60. I think I would feel even better than I do now. Its hard to judge just how good I feel because I felt so poorly for so long that I appreciate these recent improvements immensely. I do not remember how normal felt.
My brain and migraines seem to be slowly getting under control with my medication. I worry about when the doctor will try to wean me off the medication. If my ferritin is still on the low side, will the migraines just come back? Since I am not sure how much my low iron played a role in my migraines, I am not sure what will happen.
NOTE: I purposely try not to sound like an expert, I am NOT an expert. I do not want someone to happen upon this and feel as if anything I've written is undisputable fact. I've researched a lot and I try hard to decide if what I've read is true. I also try to understand my own experience. Understanding is the key to getting well.
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It can be quite a challenge running up and down with my two little girls. Before even reaching the kiddy pool, I would already be feeling lazy. I decided taking thyroid natural supplements as recommended by my trusted physician. In three weeks I felt some good results.
Did you ever get over the migraines with the iron??? Or the fingernail issues? I have almost all of these symptoms too...
I did eventually get my iron level to be in the 70's and the symptoms that were definitely caused by low iron went away except for the finger nail problems. My finger nails are better but not all the way. The migraines did not go away but my thyroid occasionally requires a dosage increase so it is not truly stable. I also have a problem with my prolactin level which is a hormone that is secreted by a tumor I have on my pituitary. I am on medication to bring that level down but as that level went up, the headaches increased. Also, in the past two or three years I have discovered that I have many food triggers. I think that I either didn't have these food triggers previously or they have gotten worse. I had kind of been in denial about them before but after final admitting it, most of them are the typical ones that people complain about - chocolate, foods with red dye, chinese food because of the msg (soy sauce) and some other weird ones like a certain BBQ sauce. The migraines had another peak about a year ago but I started another preventative on top of what I have been taking (Topomax) and I am very careful with what I eat now. It has been much better ever since. I now take the following: Armour thyroid, dostinex, butterburr extract, lamictal, topamax, one slo fe iron and claritin. I take the claritin because it helps me keep from getting a phlegm build up that started after I began taking the Topamax. I have a tendency towards allergies already and that seemed to make it worse for me. I hate to have to take so many medications but I hate to have to deal with all the migraines as the alternative. I am not advocating medication but I did not find that getting my iron level up really stopped the migraines. I kind of got to the point that I had to accept that my whole body was out of whack. Between the messed up thyroid, low iron and messed up pituitary I just think my brain is constantly trying to deal with that...and the reaction is those out of balance neurons/migraines. I do think it helps a lot to get the iron up but it definitely was not THE one and only answer. I wish that it had been. It's kind of funny because I had to reread my post to see what I had written and it seems like a lifetime ago. And what has changed the most for me is that I no longer expect an answer to the question of "why?" I don't think I will ever know why I am getting all these migraines. Partly because there isn't just one answer to that and I guess maybe that as sad as it may seem, I have come to some sort of acceptance that my body is just...not perfect. Sigh. I wish I had better health but I finally got to a point of stopping my wishing for what could be and just trying to get the best I could. With that said, I was eventually able to get my iron up into the 70's partly by taking two slo Fe tablets per day but also by eating high iron foods. I ate as much liver as I could...which isn't a lot but I at least can eat some. lol. I also ate a lot of spinach and eggs WITH the yolks because that is where the iron is. I cooked everything I could in a cast iron frying pan since that increases the iron in the food. Paying attention to eating iron rich foods was really what finally increased my iron level. Good luck.
Thank you so much for all the information. It does seem as if we do something to fix one problem, and another one just pops up in stead of - or worse, along with it. I found your blog when I was researching iron and restless leg syndrome, which I developed recently, along with migraines and the fingernail ridges which I've had for years (plus other issues too numerous to mention). Ironically, liver was one of the things I had given up a while back, because my vitamin A intake was too high and excess A may have been a trigger for the migraines and pulsing tinnitus I was getting. I'm going to ask my doctor about an iron test. Meanwhile, you're right - all we can do is hang in there. It would be nice to find the one magic pill that would cure everything, but if we just keep chipping away at it, hopefully we can make progress each day. I wish you good luck and the best of health.
If you're estrogen dominant, it can cause migraines and a host of other symptoms. Look up Dr Steven Hotze. I think the website is HotzeHWC.com It has a lot of helpful info on there.
He helped me tremendously. If you have a pituitary tumor, your estrogen and progesterone levels are out of balance. Bioidentical hormones can help.
Just a thought.
Hope you are feeling better these days.
I actually have a great endocrinologist who tests all my hormones:) That's why I drive three hours to my appointments twice a year. He helps me so much. I am okay so far with my other hormones but he watches them pretty closely since I am 50 years old now. I actually am realizing that more than likely the increased prolactin was affecting the migraines more than I had thought. Last year a couple of months before I went on the medication to bring down my prolactin level, I had added another preventative, Topamax, to help with the migraines. This decreased my migraines almost to nothing and I only got a half dozen in the past year. For me though, the side effects are pretty strong so as soon as my neurologist had put me on the 100 mg I knew it was too much...heart palpitations. They actually were not listed as a side effect but it was so obvious that it was caused by the Topamax. So I decreased it on my own after a month or so down to 75 mg and the heart palpitations went away. I was still stuck with some tingling in my hands and feet but not too bad. However, a couple of months ago the tingling seemed to increase so I decided to try 50 mg and that seemed to work out fine and the migraines have still stayed away. My only problem in the past year has been the fact that I still have quite a bit of tiredness. When I say that, I mean the kind where I sit down to watch TV in the late afternoon and I can't keep myself from falling asleep. This was happening between two and four times a week. I kept trying to figure it out and in February I did have to increase my thyroid dose because I was off again but even once it was adjusted I had the same tiredness. So after a year of being on the Topamax it suddenly occurred to me that maybe the tiredness was simply a side effect. Ha ha. I had thought that I would stop being tired once the migraines had gotten under control because they really wipe me out. One migraine can make me tired for up to a week and if I get one per week I am tired all the time. So just a few days ago I started taking only 25 mg of the Topamax and I am really, really hoping that I do NOT start getting a lot of migraines again and that it is indeed the reason why I have still been tired. If this is the case, hopefully 25 mg will be just the right amount. I am sick of being tired. What's difficult at my age is that, believe it or not, a lot of women accept that they are "slowing down" and that it is "normal" to nap in the afternoon. Sometimes when I tell people about it they simply say "what's wrong with a nap?" I just can't accept it! Ha ha. I just don't see 50 years old as so old that I should need to nap!
It is interesting to me that I have gotten a couple of comments here lately because I had stopped posting at all. Part of the reason was that I just get so sick of thinking about the whole thing and dealing with all my issues. I just want to feel normal like so many other people. I hate taking all these medications but I know that some of them are absolutely necessary (thyroid/iron) and some just make my quality of life so much better. With these new comments though it has made me see how far I have come so that is a good thing. I am working now and at one point I knew that I had so many problems that I would not be able to work. I am mostly able to think clearly and remember things although my daughter just said yesterday that I have been forgetting things a lot more lately and I am wondering if that is partly due to lowering the Topamax dose. It balances the neurons in your brain so maybe they are a little wacky right now. Anyway, I have come a long way and these new comments are making me think of the past so it is nice to feel grateful. I think a lot of people who have chronic problems can relate to the thought that it is easy to start feeling frustrated, hopeless and somewhat depressed knowing that these problems will never go away and this is life. Not thinking about it is often a defense mechanism for me.
This has helped me a lot! http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/ferritin/
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