My Hormonal Migraine Treatments Clash With IBS

Having multiple conditions makes each one even harder to manage. One condition might require a treatment that triggers the other, and you might even have to forgo a treatment because it wouldn’t work with another illness.

In my experience, it's very difficult to live with both IBS and migraines.

My migraine history

While I’ve dealt with headaches my entire life, their hormonal component has come and gone throughout the years. In my teenage years, I had terrible PMS symptoms that required me to constantly be on ibuprofen to even function, but I didn’t have IBS at the time.

Then, as I grew older, I mostly took paracetamol (also known as known as acetaminophen in the US and Canada) for my headaches in order to avoid upsetting my digestive system.

However, the hormonal migraines have recently become much less manageable.

Paracetamol (acetaminophen) no longer does anything, and the migraine medication my doctor prescribed only worked in the sense that it gave me all the possible side effects - yet no relief at all.

Now, ibuprofen helps, but it aggravates my IBS

After getting little help from my doctor, I remembered that ibuprofen used to help with my PMS in the past.

So, I decided to try again.

The only issue is: ibuprofen can upset the digestive system, and as an IBS sufferer, that’s the last thing I want! But whenever I’m living through a migraine, I’ll honestly take any relief I can get.

Ibuprofen still doesn’t work great, but it helps a little so I can at least pretend to be a functioning human being.

My doctor recommended I take ibuprofen with food to reduce the risk of stomach irritation. It’s not a simple thing to do, though: migraines give me constant nausea, and getting food down can be quite tricky.

Despite the struggle, I’ve been religiously trying to avoid taking ibuprofen on an empty stomach, and it seems to keep the IBS symptoms at bay.

Do supplements help either my IBS or migraines?

Unfortunately, medication isn’t the only thing I have to balance.

Vitamin B

I must have read somewhere that a vitamin B complex can help with headaches, as it’s a remedy I have used for years.

Unfortunately, vitamin B supplements do consistently upset my stomach.

Every time I have a migraine phase, I need to be extremely cautious to not take too many in a row, even though I find that they help the migraine phase go away faster.

It’s always a trade off—take too many and get sick, not take them and struggle through headaches for longer.

Magnesium

Magnesium is another supplement that seems to help with headaches and migraines - and yet another supplement that my IBS doesn’t like.

I have researched and tried different types of magnesium, and the one that works best for me personally is magnesium malate.

This will of course be different for everyone, but if you’re also struggling with taking magnesium, trying out different versions might be worth discussing with a doctor or pharmacist.

Contrary to vitamin B, I can take magnesium malate daily for a little while, but only if I’m not flaring. If I am, there is no way I could handle it—in that case, I need to put my IBS first.

When juggling multiple conditions, we live with inevitable trade-offs

Dealing with hormonal migraines and IBS feels like a poorly balanced game of Jenga.

Everything I take or don’t take might upset my body and cause symptoms, and I can never quite figure out how to keep both my head and digestive system happy. I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to juggle more than 2 illnesses at once.

Do you deal with multiple illnesses, and how do you handle the different triggers and remedies?