Migraine Is a Bad Bed Partner
The first time I dreamed about having a migraine, I didn’t immediately wake up. It felt confusing for some reason, like I had never had head pain, nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound before this. No one around helped me. In fact, they didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong with me. Or if they did, they ignored it and kept moving forward in their happy, wonderful life filled with joy and love.
By the time I woke up, the episode had progressed to the point that my triptan tablet wouldn’t be powerful enough to knock it down. I’ve been at this migraine game for over 50 years, so I’ve learned a thing or 20 about my flavor of migraine and what works and doesn’t work for me. I hated it when I needed to use my sumatriptan injection, but I loved how quickly it kicked a migraine’s butt.
Of course, it was about 3 in the morning. I apologized to my husband and the cats for needing to turn on a few lights. They took it well, better than me. It didn’t feel like someone had stabbed one of their eyes with a sword. It’s tough to find the alcohol swab, prep the injector, and make my way back to bed with my eyes barely open.
Once I’ve shot the medicine into my leg, I check the time and lie down. Taking a few deep breaths, I tell myself it will all be over in 12 minutes. That’s how long the injection takes to work every single time. Not 11 or 13. Exactly 12 minutes. This time was no exception. Everyone could go back to sleep for a few more hours.
Since that first migraine dream, my subconscious learned a lesson. Whenever I dream about having a migraine now, something in my brain screams at me, “Wake the hell up!” I still must get up and take a tablet, but that’s usually all that’s necessary. The downside is that I’m restless for at least an hour before it kicks in. There’s good and bad with every choice.
No one enjoys having a migraine attack, but I certainly prefer to have one during my waking hours so I can at least have a fighting chance of seeing it coming. I find it fascinating that my body adapted to nighttime migraines and started warning me via dreams. That’s amazing if you think about it.
FYI, when I started wearing a night guard for my TMJ problem, the frequency of nighttime migraine episodes dropped drastically. If you’re having a lot of nighttime attacks, it might be worth looking into. It might not be TMJ that’s accompanied by popping jaws. It could be something else like stress, which causes you to grind your teeth at night.
A dentist can tell you if they see marks on the top of your teeth. Over-the-counter guards are inexpensive and could be effective for you. Since I had the added problem of TMJ, I had to go with a special type of expensive guard designed to fix that specific problem. Decreasing the migraine episodes was a nice bonus. It takes a minute to get used to wearing a mouth guard at night, but it’s a much better bed partner than a migraine episode.
Originally published at WebMD.com on 4-28-25.
