Ways in which migraines end

I blogged about the way my migraine ends. I've been re-reading in Oliver Sacks' excellent book about migraines again today. Thought I'd drop a note about it here as well. He does mention there that migraines can end in one of three ways. The first is that of falling asleep, where a patient just falls asleep at the end of the acute phase, much like the sleep that follows an epileptic episode. The second way he calls "lysis". I checked for definitions its medical one is "The gradual subsiding of the symptoms of an acute disease." Sacks then goes on to describe the forms a lysis can take in the end of a migraine, and he does mention excretion, or emission, being a prominent part of it. According to him, the kind of body fluids which are emitted varies between patients. He mentions vomiting, tears, sneezing, urine, sweat, nosebleeding, nasal mucus, diarrhea and menstruation, all as forms of possible emissions which show up at the height of a migraine and bringing on a closure.

The third way, that Sacks has there is a crisis. He says that some of his patients were able to end an episode by creating a physical "crisis" of some sorts; in essence, washing their body/brain with adrenalin. He describes a patient that used to bring a forced ending to his migraines by either sex or wrestling. Another patient said he can end an episode by running around, shouting and doing all he could to artificially increase his adrenalin levels. Interestingly, I could actually relate to that in a way. I was once lying in bed, going through an active migraine, laying there and suffering. My two kids were at home, aged 2 and 4 back then. I had called my husband and he was on his way home, but for now they were with me, in the next room. Suddenly, my 4 years old bursts into the room saying, "Mom, David opened the door and went outside, I think he's heading for the main road". Well, you can imagine my response, migraine or not, I jumped out of bed like a rocket and sprang outside to get a hold of the little one. Only after I got him (safe and sound, he didn't make it as far), I realized that my migraine was gone. The sudden rush of adrenalin just made it go away. I don't think I can recreate the same setting again though lol, no intention of putting my kids at risk, and it needs to be spontaneous anyway.