Sarah, I'm on plenty of supplements to help control this aberrant head of mine. I'm outside alot with the dogs, so am not too worried about my Vitamin D level; plus I take 1200mg of D with Calcium Carbonate daily to prevent bone loss -- my mother had severe osteoporosis, and I don't want to go there. I take pretty hefty doses of the following:
B2 (400mg/day): known to reduce the incidence of migraines, but doesn't reduce pain or length of a migraine once it hits.
Magnesium (400mg/day): helps relax nerves and helps to prevent them from getting over-excited.
5-HTP (400mg/day): increases production of serotonin, which helps to control blood vessels, helps to reduce severity and frequency of migraines. Harvard Medical School was instrumental in this research project.
CoQ10 (300mg/day): antioxidant that increases blood flow to the brain and helps stabilize blood sugar; low blood sugar is a major trigger for migraines.
Omega-3 Fatty Acids: reduces inflammation, reduces pain associated with inflammation, and reduces frequency and severity of migraines. Both types of Omega-3 acids are required; EPA and DHA work hand-in-hand to help with inflammation.
There's also a product called Migrelief Original Formula that I just ordered; it has an herb called Feverfew in it that helps control vasoconstriction and the spasms that occur in the blood vessels during a migraine. I've read fairly extensively on this herb, and it's been recommended by a myriad of neurologists over the years. I'm adding it to my arsenal, in the hopes that it will help with things. It's been really bad for the last month; weather changes are a big trigger for me, and I know when we have a front coming in 3 days before it gets here. I'm tired of being in bed when this happens; icepacks don't help with weather front migraines. (Happening today, and I had a dinner engagement to attend earlier this evening; had to resort to Vicodin ES to get through the evening. It was worth it.
)
Exercise is also supposed to help. But anything more than the daily walk to the mailbox at the end of the road tends to be a trigger for me, so I really have to be careful with that. My idiot Yellow Lab got loose several weeks ago (he likes to bolt out the door...), and I had to follow him down the hill until I caught up with him. Catching him was easy -- the idiot is easily bribed with baloney!!! -- but getting both of us back up the hill and home triggered a massive migraine, and I was down for two days from that episode. He's now cabled to the couch when I have to open the door.
Anyway, it's an ongoing and seemingly never-ending issue for me. In the past, before things were under control, I used to threaten to take my extra-long drill bit extender, put a really wide paddle bit on it, and run in directly into the left side of my head. I horrified several neurologists when I told them that, but I meant business when I was trying to get them to understand my level of pain. They got it, really quickly. Thankfully, I don't have to threaten that anymore.
I do understand your aversion to fluorescent lights; they are a ghastly trigger for me, so I don't go anywhere these days unless I have one of my many baseball caps on and pulled down low for protection. Strobe lights are a horror story; I've had to turn off all the blinking lights on my BlackBerry phone -- they drive me nuts. And I took care of the glare on my laptop screen with a nifty little freebie program called
f.lux -- it works like a charm to control the light level on the screen. Just follow the setup directions, personalize to your taste, and you're good to go on it. It has made a big difference for me.
I wish my former place of employment had been more cooperative about giving me a dark office, but they refused to do that, even though I had a written prescription for it from my neurologist. What they did do, though, was to have the maintenance guys come in and remove all the fluorescent tubes around my desk, in a 30-foot circle -- and it really helped. And it was amazing how many of my co-workers noticed immediately that they no longer got daily headaches! Fluorescent lights needs to be banned -- forever. I think they're dangerous to our health.
I finally retired though; the stress was outrageous, the migraines were out of control most of the time, and I finally said to hell with it and came home. Best thing I ever did for myself.