I am a 34-year-old woman with rough hormonal cycles, ADHD, and migraines. For a long time, I really resented those facts. Through life-style changes, learning, and lots of counseling, I’ve learned how to navigate my migraine and ADHD symptoms throughout my hormonal cycle, because – surprise! – your hormones have a HUGE impact on both your ADHD symptoms and migraine symptoms.

Like many women, I started my periods around the age of 12. Around age 15, I was having cramps so severe I was missing a lot of school. Turns out I had ovarian cysts, but that’s a different story. Around the same time, the feeling that I was different than other kids became so obvious to me that I insisted I see a psychologist for an assessment. It took a lot of convincing for my parents to let me see someone, because by their metrics (e.g., I was an A student taking AP courses, worked on the weekends, and had some friends), I was “fine.” But, I wasn’t.

I was severely depressed, anxious about everything, and had started having panic attacks. I missed homecoming my sophomore year to stay home and work on a history project, because I had to get it “perfect”, and I didn’t trust myself to be able to work on it later in the week. I overcompensated for my chaotic mind by over-planning everything, and when that plan failed, I blamed myself. I told myself I just had to try harder. I tried so hard, for so long and it never felt like enough. I did get the ADHD diagnosis though – along with Major Depressive Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Panic Attacks. Got medicated and then I stopped getting help.

I just really wish the psychologist, my primary care physician, literally anyone, would’ve told me then that my depressive and anxious symptoms (and my general emotional dysregulation), was actually a symptom, and a result, of ADHD. Throughout my teenage years and my 20s, I treated them as separate things and relapsed again and again into bouts of severe emotional dysregulation and feeling chaotic in my mind and body. It was never quiet in my mind. It was agony.

Also, throughout my teenage years and 20’s, I had frequent ‘sinus headaches.’ I had allergies too and frequent ear infections, so I blamed it on that. When I moved to Seattle, WA from Austin, TX, I felt like my “allergies’ were significantly worse – I felt headachy and nauseous and had vertigo frequently. At the time I was diagnosed with ‘non allergy rhinitis’ – and was told I was basically having allergic responses to changes in barometric pressure (so living in Seattle might not have been the best choice….). Then, around my 30th birthday (September 2019), I started noticing that anytime I had even one alcoholic drink, I’d have a severe hangover the next day. This continued so I cut back on drinking. Then in spring of 2020, shortly after the world shut down due to the Coronavirus pandemic, I had one series of things after another happen that caused a depressive episode (no surprises there) and also decided I’d work out more, track my calories and lose weight. I started having non-stop headaches. Literally. Non-stop. I would wake up with a headache every day. Now, I suspect it was a combination of not getting enough nutrients and high stress. However, when I mentioned this to a coworker at the time, they suggested I ask an ENT about getting sinus surgery. When I went to discuss this all with the ENT, and told him my history, he was the first person to ever tell me that I had a Migraine Disorder.

The more research I did on migraines, the more it made sense to me. For 15+ years I had been having vertigo, nausea, ear pain, neck and shoulder pain, sinus pressure, and headaches. This all feel under the umbrella of MIGRAINES. So, if I could treat the migraines, I could reduce the symptoms.

I first tried the Heal Your Headache diet – which did help for a time – but in retrospect, I probably started feeling better because I couldn’t restrict calories to lose weight when I was already severely limited in the foods I could eat, so I was no longer in a nutrient deficit. I tried magnesium and riboflavin (B2). I focused on my sleep hygiene and hydration. I continued working out but incorporated more yoga. All this helped, but I was still insanely stressed because of work and often had migraines mid-week. My body’s way of telling me to slow down.