Why do migraines return in the night?

I am so sick of this. All day getting to a more comfortable place and then its bed time.
And back it comes..Why???
Doesnt anyone know?

All these clever doctors etc. Doesnt anyone know why sleeping brings it back?
Does anyone know how to break that cycle please?

I woke with a migraine on Thursday and by bedtime it was almost gone.
Friday morning by 7am it was back.
Saturday, woke in pain again, but managed without a triptan.
Went to bed last night with almost no pain at all.
Woken this morning and its back....

There has to be a reason for this.
Does anyone have any clues please,anyone cracked it??

Thanks.

pen, for years and years, i could go to bed with no head pain, and wake with killer pain at 4 a.m. i obsessed about finding the 'why' and never did.

something to do with biorhythms or hormone cycles or??? after 41 years, i'm so used to it, that if i didn't have pain in the middle of the night, i'd think i was dead, i guess........dianne

I know Dianne, I have given up trying to find out why in that sense.
I just dont understand when it happens to so many of us, how no one can suss it.
I almost never get a migraine in the waking hours. 90% of them are sleepers.
And if I sleep in the daytime (seldom), it dosen't happen.

But, it doesn't happen every day.
When they start, its in the night.
They come back, overnight.
But I just went 6 days and dint once wake with a migraine...
WHERE did it go???

If I could suss that, maybe I could stop it happening.
Isnt it depressing, to go to bed feeling better and then start over the next morning Dianne.

Pen

yep, sleeping has become traumatic, hasn't it? dr. robbins, do you have ideas about this thing which is driving some of us totally nuts? dianne

The very thing that is supposed to be so nice and restful and healing, has become a nightmare...
Yes Dr Robbins, what can you add?

Or Teri?

Neck and upper trap. muscles in the wrong position?

Martin

apparently if you had amig in the day and took a triptan then it returned in the night its because the triptan didnt clear it up!!

The Triptans never clear it up Dawn. Are they supposed to??

What about the ones when I havent had a Triptan for days??

I think it is something else rather than medication.

My personal theory is it has to do with the pillows. Anybody else very sensitive to the type of pillow they sleep on? Big foam ones are the worst. Feather pillows seem better at first but often turn into a hard lump by morning. Personally I cannot sleep with anything that puts pressure on the neck or I will definitely end up with a headache. The best I have found so far is by Downia and is made with 50% duck down. You can get this pillow in Australia, New Zealand and in the UK, but I could not find it in the US.

the chiari pillow is wonderful. cheryl may know if this is still available. the inventor, unfortunately, died. mine was $60, and well worth the price.

personally, pillow types, or no pillow, made not a bit of difference in my head pain, but the soft chiari one feels really good. i do have chiari but have declined to have surgery.

since i had sinus surgery a few years ago, i've had to sleep with 2 pillows. it's certainly worth experimenting A LOT with various pillow types.

i thought i'd gone to heaven when i started sleeping on down pillows, but then realized after a short time that my head was worse because of my feather allergy. sometime you can't win. dianne

The Chiari pillow:

http://www.chiaripillow.com/

Cheryl

I still say it's lack of oxygen and/or you neck being kinked up or cold at night. That's why I woke up with migraines.

Chris

Dehydration - When you are asleep, you are unable to drink water. When you are awake you can drink water. This is a very big issue for me.

pen, the evidence a triptan works is that you have at least a whole day of being pain free after taking them. if the pain goes then returns they havent worked or else it isnt a migriane pain. its hard to tell sometimes tho i and i know you have to get the riptan into you as soon as the pain comes and i know ive made the mistake of rushing for atriptan and found out later it was a headache but not a migraine. you know you said about what if you havent taken any meds, are you meaing if youve had a mig in the day and its gone completely then returned in the night or just ones that come in the night?

pen wrote:I almost never get a migraine in the waking hours. 90% of them are sleepers.

I'm the reverse. I rarely wake up with a migraine. Almost all of mine come between 10am and 3pm.

Because you digest your food overnight. What you eat today, affects how you are tomorrow.

Is there any stray light in your room at night? Bright street lights will give me a migraine. Is there enough air in the room? I sleep with window open even in winter and I am thinking about getting a PAP machine or an oxygen concentrator. Is the room too hot? That will cause me to have a migraine. Is there a mould problem in your bedroom? If you sleep in another room or another house, do you still get a migraine? Can you experiment with length of sleep, waking up etc and see if it makes a difference? What happens in the summer and winter when the length of the days change? How about during spring and autumn-are they worse then? I used to get into a pattern of migraine, then ever increasing disrupted sleep until I finally got another migraine. Spring and fall were worse than summer and winter for me.

Lentils, you have given me a lot to think about, thank you.
Much of what you mentioned I have already addressed.

It is hard to sleep with the window open because we are on a rat run.
The traffic starts 6am and wakes me, so I have to shut the window often.

The lighting, I leave the curtains open a little as I dont like total darkness.

The rest, I am still pondering on, thank you.

Pen

There could be many reasons why this happens. If you take any medication during the day for a migraine, it could be wearing off, or you get a rebound when it wears off in the middle of the night.

You are not drinking while you sleep, and you could be getting dehydrated. I make sure to drink plenty of fluids before bed. If I do happen to wake up in the night, I will make sure to drink some water to keep hydrated.

If you have sinus issues (you get congested when you lay down) which often is my problem, that can cause a headache. I make sure to elevate my head at night to prevent this from happening.

This is unusual for me but I don't agree with any of the responses. I only get migraines at night also (anywhere from after midnight until dawn) and never get them in the day. I believe it has to do with the chemistry of our bodies at night vs. daytime. If I take a triptan before bedtime, I have a 100% success rate of not having a migraine in the morning. Of course, I don't do this every night, but if I fear a migraine may be triggered or I have special plans for the following day and do not want to take a chance of a migraine, I will take a triptan.

Hi Linda,

I know, you know, we are alike in our migraines and I also know you wrote what I could have written.
My neuro told me he thinks it is down to circadian rhythm, so same page I guess..

I think, if I am going to do this trip, I might take one at bedtime, which I havent tried yet.

I do find if I wake with one early.....6 am or so and take a Frova, I findn it takes about 5/6 hours to do its work and the S/E to wear off.
Whereas if I take it say 9am and manage to stay awake, its more like 3 hours....
SO.....going back to sleep upsets it for me....

Sleep should be my friend. Seems it is not.

P

I would think, but I don't know for sure, that if it is circadian rhythms, then there should be a difference in number of migraines when the seasons, the number of hours of daylight change. I think it wouldn't hurt to examine sleep hygiene, especially light in the bedroom at night. One of the things I try to keep constant no matter where I am
is keeping the room dark, so that variable is constant, even if there are bright street lights.You can just try some eye shades. I can tell you from my experiences travelling that flying into summer wreaks more havoc on me than flying into winter. It's something you can experiment with easily and cheaply, anyway. Last summer I went on a 4 week camping trip and I did not have a single migraine. Sleeping in a tent in total darkness, eating healthy food and no stress (no contact with the outside world) may have been the reason.