Gotham Wellness Journals

I used to think I was just squinting a lot. Bright rooms, sunny afternoons, fluorescent office lights — I'd power through with slightly narrowed eyes and assume everyone felt the same way. It took an embarrassingly long time to realize that what I was experiencing wasn't normal sensitivity. It was a migraine warning signal I had completely learned to ignore. Light sensitivity — the clinical term is photophobia — is one of the most common migraine symptoms and triggers, and it works in both directions. It can signal that a migraine is coming, and it can actively make one worse once it starts. Understanding both sides of that relationship changed how I manage my days. This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Why migraines and light sensitivity are connected The trigeminal nerve, which is heavily involved in migraine pain, has direct connections to the visual processing centers in the brain. When a mi...

For years, my worst migraines never showed up during the actual stressful week. They showed up after. Saturday morning, the first real morning to sleep in and relax, and there it was — a migraine, right on schedule, like it had been waiting for permission. I used to think that was just bad luck. Annoying timing. Maybe my body hated weekends. It took tracking weeks of entries side by side to realize it wasn't random at all. It had a name, and once I learned it, the pattern made a strange kind of sense. This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. What the letdown effect actually is The letdown effect describes migraines that show up not during a stressful period, but right after it ends — when the pressure finally lifts and your body is supposed to be relaxing. Here's the part that explains why it happens: During the stress While you're under pressure, your body keeps cortisol elevated. ...

I used to walk into every neurology appointment with nothing but a vague sense of "it's been bad lately." No dates. No specifics. Just a general feeling that things weren't going well, which is not exactly useful information for the person trying to help you. It took me embarrassingly long to realize that the doctor isn't in the room with me when the migraines happen. They only know what I tell them. And "it's been bad lately" tells them almost nothing. So I started bringing my tracker to every appointment. Here's what's actually on that list now, and why each piece matters. This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. 1. Your tracked symptom history Not just "I get migraines." Specifics: how often, how long they last, where the pain is located, what it feels like. Throbbing and stabbing point to different things. A migraine that starts behind one eye...

For a long time, I thought I was doing everything right. I was managing my stress, trying to sleep enough, cutting out the "obvious" triggers everyone talks about. And I was still getting migraines I couldn't explain. It wasn't until I started tracking everything — not just my migraines, but what I was actually putting into my body — that I noticed something. On the weeks I was lower on magnesium (skipping meals, more coffee than usual, more stress), my migraines were more frequent. More intense. Harder to shake. So I started reading about why. What magnesium actually does in your body Magnesium isn't just another supplement aisle buzzword. It plays a direct role in how your nervous system functions, and that matters a lot if you live with migraines. Here's what it's actually doing behind the scenes: 1. It calms overactive nerve signals. Magnesium helps regulate the electrical activity in your brain. When levels are low, neurons can become mor...

 Why Your Migraines Are Worse Around Your Period (And What I Track to Get Ahead of It) I didn't figure it out from a doctor. I didn't read it in a pamphlet. I figured it out because I started writing things down. For years I would get hit with a migraine that felt worse than usual — longer, harder to shake, resistant to everything I tried. And for years I chalked it up to stress, or bad luck, or just one of those weeks. It wasn't until I started tracking my attacks alongside my cycle that the pattern became impossible to ignore. Every single month, in the four to five days before my period, my migraine threshold dropped through the floor. The same glass of wine that was fine two weeks earlier would wreck me. A skipped lunch that I could usually push through would turn into a six-hour attack. My body wasn't randomly failing me. It was following a very predictable schedule — one I just hadn't been paying attention to. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. Wha...