Migraines 101: The “Dark, Quiet Room” Fallacy

15Apr14

Those of you who get migraines have no doubt heard the (same, stupid) advice (over and over) that the best thing to do for a migraine is to lie down in a dark, quiet room.

I want to make sure that those of you who do NOT have migraines understand that the dark, quiet room is not a treatment for migraine. It is, at best, an accommodation. The dark, quiet room does minimize sensory input such as noise, light, and small children. But aside from limiting harm, it does exactly zero. Once you’re in the dark, quiet room, you realize, “OK — I’m now lying down in a dark, quiet room… in excruciating, dehumanizing pain. Isn’t something else supposed to happen?”

Nope.

And there you lie. Aaaaaaaaall freakIn’ day. If you’re lucky, you may be able to sleep a bit, but that could backfire if the headache doesn’t go away by bedtime, because then you will be lying awake in your dark, quiet room in excruciating, dehumanizing pain aaaaaaaaaall night now, too.

In short, telling a migraineur/euse to lie down in a dark, quiet room is about equivalent to telling someone with a broken leg to sit down.

Advertisement


One Response to “Migraines 101: The “Dark, Quiet Room” Fallacy”

  1. 1 Sandy

    I used to suffer with migraines. Then a doctor suggested that I try taking a magnesium supplement. It doesn’t work for everyone but it works for me. I’ve not had a migraine since I started taking it. I buy the TwinLab brand, 400mg. capsules and take one a day.

    Sorry for the unasked for advice. Here’s hoping it helps you.


Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


%d bloggers like this: