Attempting to Move with Chronic Migraine
It seems no matter how hard I tried to be prepared to move from one house to another, I simply failed to be completely ready for this move. While moving can be stressful, I found that I also added to my stress levels on my own.
The havoc of migraine and stress
One of my biggest migraine triggers is stress. When it comes to being extremely stressed out, I can develop the worst kind of migraines. These migraines are the ones that are hard to push through the pain and still be productive while experiencing. Sadly, they also tend to last for days.
I am not used to moving away from my home area. Most of my family lives within a few blocks of one another. I found myself needing to be booted out of my own head. The longer that I stayed wrapped up in my thoughts and re-asking myself if this was what I really wanted, the more anxiety I would feel towards the move. It added to my stress and did not help me accomplish anything.
A woman and her clothing
Initially, I wanted to go through things before packing and moving them. I wanted to go through my clothing, pack what I wanted to keep, and donate the rest. I thought this meant my life would be easier since I would only be moving the things I knew I wanted to keep.
But how wrong was this thought? I added something more time-consuming and stressful to my plate by trying to go through my clothing before packing. It was extra stressful considering the quickly approaching deadline.
Eventually, I realized that it would be much easier to simply move everything. My new plan involved leaving the boxes and bags of clothing in the garage at the new house until I sorted through them, meaning none of my clothing would see the closet until I approved of keeping them. While this may take extra time, I do not have the stress of having a deadline to get through the sorting.
Medications
Due to multiple health issues, I am on several medications. I need to take about half of them nightly, while the others are as-needed for migraine, asthma, or fibromyalgia flare-up. My first step in dealing with all my medications was to make sure I had everything refilled. I did not want to be in the middle of moving and realize I was out of a medication.
I put all my as-needed medications in a makeup bag that zipped up. This way, they were easy to get to and could not spill everywhere. On the other hand, my nightly medications were all placed in one of the cube storage containers. Granted, I filled a Saturday through Sunday pill container before and left it in my purse. There are many things that I can go without prior to not having my medications.
IT help
I am very challenged when it comes to dealing with technology. To lower my stress about setting things up in the new house, I had somebody else deal with setting up all the technology. I did not have to worry about televisions, soundbars, DVD players, or even the thermostat and smoke detector. Personally, this was a massive relief for me.
Hit and miss
For me, this experience of moving while living with chronic migraine was hit and miss. There are things that I could have been better prepared for, things I could have rethought, and some things that I handled successfully. I have learned some necessary things to consider for the next time I need to move.
Have you moved while managing chronic migraines?
Join the conversation