Insomnia and Migraine

By Tom Picerno

2 min read

There are so many co-morbid conditions that are associated with migraine it boggles my mind. I feel that I am fortunate to be carrying only a few with me on my journey because I know of many others that have many more than me. I suffer from chronic migraine as well as chronic back pain and depression. I also suffer from insomnia.

I really struggle with insomnia even though I take medication to help me relax and fall asleep. Some nights that just doesn’t work for me. I end up either not sleeping at all or I can’t stay asleep.

I try so hard to sleep

I have tried supplementing my medication with melatonin and Benadryl, but they really don’t help at all. Many nights I lay awake trying my best to not look at the clock as it is just a reminder of how I’m not sleeping.

Many nights I spend walking around my house trying to be quiet as to not disturb the family members who are actually sleeping. I am jealous that they can sleep and I simply cannot fall asleep. I do feel tired. I yawn incessantly as I wait to be sufficiently exhausted to the point that I can finally fall asleep.

I spend a good deal of time reading when I can’t get to sleep. Normally that makes me tired, but apparently during my superhuman insomniac cycles that does not work. It’s not even that my mind is busy thinking of random things because I’m pretty good about being able to clear my mind. I have also tried using a meditation app to help me get into a place where I am being mindful of relaxing.

There have been times that I just stay awake well into the next day before I’m so exhausted that I simply must lay down. I will take a brief nap to try and get my body recharged, but even that can be a struggle sometimes.

Interrupted sleep is a migraine trigger

One of the worst things I often face is that interrupted sleep for me is a migraine trigger. Migraine attacks just wipe me out with a flu-like drain of my energy. You would think that would help me sleep!

Sometimes it does along with the abortive medication I take for an attack, but all too often I’m still sick in a state of restlessness. This leaves me to become a catnapper of sorts. I tend to nap throughout the days as my schedule permits. It’s far from an ideal way to live my life, but it’s the best that I can do at the time and I’m ok with that.

Moving forward guilt-free

It’s important to note that being ok with a new way of living life with migraine and its co-morbid conditions is just that, OK. There are far too many times when guilt will find its way into our thoughts, and that can be a dangerous thing for us migraineurs. It’s up to us to make peace with our illness and to know that it’s ok to have a bad few days, weeks, or even months.

We will get over those hurdles and those days will soon be behind us. We just need to find ways to live the life that has been given to us each day.

This article represents the opinions, thoughts, and experiences of the author; none of this content has been paid for by any advertiser. The Migraine.com team does not recommend or endorse any products or treatments discussed herein. Learn more about how we maintain editorial integrity here.

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katetyndall Member
Tom, I'm like you are with insomnia. It's one of several co-morbid conditions I have. Recently I saw a sleep specialist. I had wondered whether I might have sleep apnea. Based on an extensive workup he did he doesn't believe I do—though I will be tested for it later using a take-home device, since my insomnia makes me a lousy candidate for sleep lab testing. The doctor thinks I have actually trained myself over the decades for less and less sleep, and it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was an interesting take on my insomnia, and certainly food for thought. With my input, he set up a sleep plan for me to follow and has me keeping a sleep diary. My initial two weeks were wildly skewed, thanks to a week-long migraine that ended up with me in the ER in mid-March for 18 hours followed by another 30 hours in the hospital's neurology unit. Big fun, as you might imagine. This was then followed by a brief period of recovery, with no migraine but feeling loggy with lassitude and having what I call a lazy brain. Then I had to ramp up to a period of intense activity to make all the deadlines for my projects that had been thrown to the winds when the migraine hit. Not much sleep happening then. One of the things the sleep specialist wanted me to do every evening was take melatonin. I was about to protest, when he held up his hand and said, not like you've taken it before. He wanted me to take a tiny dose, 1mg, five hours before I go to bed at the time we had decided on. For me that time is 1 am. It's amazing how well that works. For one thing, I no longer have the vivid and somewhat disturbing dreams I had when I took the 3 mg dose that I was used to using when I did take melatonin. Better than that, taking melatonin that much earlier in the evening relaxes me to the point of sleepiness within say an hour, but then that sleepiness passes fairly quickly, usually within 30 minutes. Yet when I go to bed, I find I don't wrestle with insomnia for 1 to 2 hours before getting to sleep. It doesn't work like that every night, but it has been working more often than not, say 3 to 4 days out of a 5-day work week. I'll take it!! It's something you might try for yourself to see if such a regimen has a similar effect for you. I'm grateful for any small step. I feel like I've been sleep deprived for decades, and the older I get, the harder it is to function fully on broken sleep. Good luck to you, Tom!
FudgeKitty01 Member
I too find it difficult if not impossible to sleep the first night of a migraine. I currently take four 500 mg GABA, 10 mg Melatonin, two 500 mg Valerian Root & two prescription Tramadol's before going to bed & still often cannot sleep, or, I sleep a little & take more pills every 2 hours throughout the night. The only thing that ever worked well was two prescription Temazepam, which doctors are reluctant to prescribe now due to all the concerns about addiction or misuse. If anyone has found a better OTC option, please let me know!
1. Holly Harding Moderator & Contributor
 <inline-mention username="FudgeKitty01" user-id="8645676"/> - Thank you so much for sharing some of the challenges you face with sleep due to migraine attacks. It sounds like you've made a real effort to find a solution and some relief on this front. I wanted to share this resource with you and draw your attention to the comments that follow the piece as there are some interesting ideas regarding managing insomnia with migraine: <a href='https://migraine.com/forums/insomnia' target='_blank'>https://migraine.com/forums/insomnia</a>. Hope these may prove helpful. Please keep in touch- we're so glad you're with us. Warmly- Holly <a href='https://-migraine.com' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer ugc'>-migraine.com</a> team.