Hey Migraine Mentees 👋 

Today’s newsletter takes 5 minutes to read—so if you’ve only got 60 seconds, here’s what you need to know:

• Your eyes can quietly amplify migraine symptoms. Extra visual effort (focusing, fixating, tracking) can load your brain and neck and feed shared pain pathways…

• Bright lights, flicker, glare, fast motion, and busy patterns often spike eye pain, dizziness, and light sensitivity—especially if vestibular migraine is in the mix…

• Close-up visual work recruits upper traps and neck muscles, and over time, that added load can aggravate migraine pathways.

• Treatment goals often involve targeted visual rehab, smarter screens (brightness/contrast, larger fonts, frequent breaks), graded exposure to motion, and supportive cervical work…

This week, we’ll demystify the eye–neck–brain connection and show you practical steps to reduce visual triggers—so reading, scrolling, and shopping aisles don’t run your day.

🧠 The Migraine Mentors

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In This Week’s Edition…

• 🥡 Weekly Take-Out

  • Meme of The Week - 🏣 Triggered by Post Malone…

• 📸 Weekly TikToks

  • Do Cold and Heat Actually Work?

  • A Migraine is NOT A Headache…

• 🔈️ The Migraine Mentors Minicast - Podcast Series

  • The Hidden Visual Triggers Behind Your Migraines

• 📜 This Week’s Top Article

  • How Your Eyes Influence Your Migraine Symptoms

• 🍴 Migraine-Friendly Recipe of the Week

  • Blueberry Oatmeal Bowl

🥡 WEEKLY TAKE-OUT

Meme of The Week

🥡 WEEKLY TIKTOKS

Do Cold and Heat Actually Work?

@doctorsood

Have you tried this for your migraine headache? 🤕 VC: @cupofkatie #migraine #migrainerelief

A Migraine is NOT A Headache…

@lifewithmigraine

It’s not a headache #migraine #InvisibleIllness

🗞️ MIGRAINE MINICAST

🎧 The Hidden Visual Triggers Behind Your Migraines

🥡 If reading, scrolling, or bright aisles ramp your symptoms, your eyes may be adding hidden load to your brain and neck. It’s not “just in your head”, as this added visual effort can feed the same pain pathways involved in migraine.

🧠 In this week’s Migraine Mentors Minicast, we unpack how vision, neck tension, and migraine interact—and what to do next:

• The eye–neck–brain connection (plain-English look at the shared pain relay where face/neck signals meet)…

• Why flicker, glare, and fast motion can spike eye pain, dizziness, and light sensitivity…

• The three most-missed vision problems:

  • 1.) Convergence insufficiency (eyes drift outward up close → words “swim,” temple pressure)…
    2.) Fixation instability (hard to keep your gaze steady → visual tension, neck bracing)…
    3.) Tracking issues with pursuits & saccades (busy scenes/scrolling = dizzy, tight)…

• How close-up visual work recruits upper traps/neck and can add fuel to migraine pathways…

• A 60-second self-check to know if you should ask for a binocular-vision/oculomotor exam...

• How targeted visual rehab, smart screen strategies (brightness/contrast, larger fonts, frequent breaks), graded exposure, and supportive cervical work to improve function…

🧩 If you “see” 20/20 but still get head/eye pressure or dizziness after screens, this episode shows you what to look for—and how to talk to your care team about it.

👇 Tap below to listen now! 👇

📜 TOP ARTICLE

👀 How Your Eyes Influence Your Migraine Symptoms

If reading, scrolling, or grocery-store aisles set off your migraine, this one’s for you…

For many of you, the way your eyes focus, fixate, and track can add strain to your brain and neck. This isn’t just “in your head”—it’s how vision and pain pathways connect and work together.

Neck and head pain share a common relay called the trigeminocervical complex, so issues with one can trigger issues with the other.

And as you’re well aware, bright lights can directly (and indirectly) n… amplify head pai

But has anyone ever told you why?

⚡️ How Your Eyes Can Trigger Symptoms

Migraine brains are often visually sensitive…

Light flicker, glare, and fast motion can often spike symptoms like eye pain, dizziness, or tension headaches—and moving scenes can worsen sway and dizziness in vestibular migraine.

When visual effort rises, your neck/shoulder muscles inherently need to work harder, essentially feeding those shared pain pathways and making things more difficult for everyone involved…

So how do you treat it?

📓 Common Visual Issues That Often Go Uncovered

1) Convergence Problems (eyes don’t team well up close) 👀 

• What it is: With convergence insufficiency (CI), the eyes drift outward at near, so you have to work to pull them inward.

• How it feels: Eyestrain, temple pressure, words that “move,” losing your place, or closing one eye to focus the other.

• What actually helps: The best-tested treatment is office-based vergence/accommodative therapy with home practice. CI can also appear with migraine and targeted visual therapies have been shown to be beneficial in various published case series.

2) Fixation Troubles (hard to hold a steady gaze) 🫵 

• What it is: Difficulty keeping your eyes still on a word, dot, or fixation point.

• How it feels: Visual tension, disconnect, eye strain.

• What actually helps: Unsteady fixation makes near work feel like work and can invite neck bracing. Between attacks, some people with migraine show differences in fixation and related eye-movement control and on cognitive eye-movement tasks. Visual and gaze fixation therapies are often the best course of treatment for these issues.

3) Tracking Stress (smooth pursuits and quick saccade jumps) 🎯 

• What it is: Pursuits track moving targets; Saccades are quick jumps between targets.

• How it feels: Unsteadiness during busy visual environments, eye tension, dizziness while scrolling or tracking moving objects in space

• What actually helps: Tracking across lines or shifting focus quickly can raise dizziness or neck tightness—especially if you’re motion-sensitive. Visual rehabilitation once again is the best course of treatment, along with supporting neck and structural work of the cervical spine.

🌀 How The Eyes Influence The Neck

Close-up visual work recruits your neck/shoulder muscles to steady your head, and while that’s a good thing for the normal population, it can be a trigger for those whos struggle with migraine.

Upper trapezius muscle activity rises with visually demanding tasks and eye-focusing effort, and sadly, this upper trapezius and visual activity can increase in severity together over time.

And remember what we just talked about…?

Those neck signals feed the same head-pain relay involved in migraine pathology through the trigeminocervical complex system.

Your At-Home “60-Second Self-Assessment Check”

If you say “yes” to 2–3 of these questions, it’s time to ask for a binocular-vision/oculomotor exam at your next doctors visit

• After 15–30 minutes of reading or screens, you feel head/eye pressure or neck tightness.

• Words blur, double, or “swim,” or you close one eye to read.

• Aisles, bold patterns, or fast scrolling make you dizzy or nauseated.

• You see 20/20 on exams, but near-work symptoms keep showing up.

Your eyes are a window into the brain, so if you’re still dealing with visual issues and chronic migraine symptoms, it’s time to make a change and get to the bottom of your issues…

🧠 The Migraine Mentors

🍴MIGRAINE-FRIENDLY RECIPE

Blueberry Oatmeal Bowl

✅ Ingredients

• ½ cup rolled oats

• 1 cup water or unsweetened almond milk

• ½ cup fresh blueberries

• 1 tbsp almond butter

• Sprinkle of cinnamon

📖 Instructions

1. In a small pot, bring water or almond milk to a gentle simmer.

2. Stir in oats and cook until soft (about 5 minutes).

3. Transfer to a bowl.

4. Top with blueberries, almond butter, and a light sprinkle of cinnamon.

🌿 Why This Recipe is Migraine & Histamine-Friendly

• Rolled oats

  • A gentle, whole-grain carbohydrate that provides steady energy without sharp blood sugar spikes, which can sometimes trigger migraines. Oats are naturally low in histamine.

• Unsweetened almond milk or water

  • A clean, neutral liquid without dairy proteins, which can be problematic for some people with migraines. Almond milk is generally low histamine (unless heavily processed or flavored).

• Fresh blueberries

  • Fresh fruits (especially berries like blueberries) are usually low in histamine and rich in antioxidants that support brain and vascular health. Note: dried or very ripe berries may be higher in histamine, so fresh is best.

• Almond butter

  • Provides healthy fats and protein to stabilize blood sugar. Nuts can be a trigger for some, but almonds are usually well-tolerated and lower in histamine compared to walnuts, cashews, or peanuts. Using a single-ingredient almond butter (no added oils or sugars) is safest.

• Cinnamon

  • A warming spice that adds flavor without triggering histamine release.

This bowl is low in histamine, stabilizes blood sugar, avoids common migraine triggers (aged cheese, processed meats, MSG, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, chocolate), and uses fresh, whole ingredients.

It’s light but satisfying, helping you start the day without worrying about food as a trigger.