Migraines and Headaches

MIGRAINES & HEADACHES

By Bronwyn Poultney

I have always suffered from migraines but when I crashed my bike hard enough to split my carbon fiber bike, break my jaw, nose and cheekbone, and crack my eye sockect, I started to have vestibular migraines every day, meaning I was having migraines with dizziness and suffered from vertigo.

I stupidly tried my hardest to ignore all this to live life as normally as I could. Of course this meant my migraines got worse. In the end I decided to trust my team of yoga teachers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychiatrists, neurologists. They were all pretty much saying the same thing, but the yoga teachers had something physical and practical that I could do to change my health.

All the asanas Tessa Meek (Wellington Yoga) initially put me in was supported, with my spine touching the ground or was on supports. It was the only way I could relax.

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana on a yoga bench, my arms supported by bolsters and sandbags on my thighs and on the front of my shoulders.

Supta Virasana, again sandbags on my thighs.

Whatever the asana was, spatially I could feel where I was, and with the weights I was grounded.

After a long while I progressed to Halasana, draped over a halasana box with my eyes bandaged. Basically I walked into the yoga studio, set up halasana, and stayed there for most of the class. I can’t even begin to tell you how that pose changed my life. There was a release and a space that allowed the healing to begin.

As my body healed, became stronger, I started more inversions in slings, hanging over a trestle, sirsasana stool. Over time I started to put some weight on my skull in the inversions. I can’t really explain it, but

weight on my skull is really different to an inversion without weight. I can only explain it by saying my brain is happier with the weight.

A couple of years into my injury I noticed if I could do Sirsasana, and Salamba Sarvagasana every day I just didn’t have the panic attacks and migraines that had been happening since the accident.

A couple of years ago I suffered a partially prolapsed uterus, and began doing some version of supported shoulder stand twice a day. This was great for my reproductive organs, but it was fantastic for my migraines in that I’ve barely had a migraine since.

This is ten years of work of reducing my migraines to almost nothing. If I do get a precursor to one, my body is pretty good at telling me what to do, which tends to be either Supta Padangustasana II (top leg resting on a wall), spike work, or Setu Bandha Sarvangasana.

Sometimes I just have to get myself in a dark room and ride it out.