Migraine distractions

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned about pain control is that distraction helps. There were times when the kids were little or at least younger that we would be in the Emergency Room at the hospital and the doctor would come in and be very confused because whichever child I had with me and I would be laughing. I knew some really good jokes and if they didn't work than silly stories about their siblings usually did the trick. Of course there was always sufficient evidence of injury or illness to convince the doctor fairly quickly that there was good reason for us to be there. Both my husband and I had EMT training and did not take the kids in unless there was a legitimate reason. We amazed the staff that we could get the kids to laugh in all but the most dramatic cases, but being able to do so helped keep the trauma of going to the ER to a minimum.
With all my medical problems I have that involve pain issues I have found that distraction is helpful and sometimes even better than pain meds. The main problem is keeping the distraction going. Here is a list of some of the distractions I use and how well they work for me; they may work entirely different for you but you can give it a try. MOVIES-DVDs: Movies at the theatre don't work, to much getting ready, to many other distractions to keep one from really concentrating on the movie. DVDs work pretty well at home if I'm by myself were I can really get into the movie without interruptions especially if the movie is new and reviting. BOOKS: I find that when I have a really good book, a real page turner, I can escape into it and forget the pain. MUSIC: Mostly I use music with other distractions or when the pain killers do finally start to work and I feel like I might be able to sleep music gives me enough of a distraction to be better able to do that. ART: I have found that doing art involves so much of my attention, in so many ways, that it often works the best. With art I am using my intellect, my imagination, and my physical body to produce my piece of art. I also find I learn lots in the form of technique every time I work at my art talents and interests.
Right now and all day I have had a tremendously horrible migraine complete with nausea and dizziness. I have been trying to distract myself from the pain by taking on a request from a friend on one of the photography sites I belong to. The first photo (at the top) was the original picture that I took. It was of an old tree and the hole that was developing in it. Up close like this it reminded me of an abstract painting. I posted it on the site and here, too. She saw it and commented that I could probably do some art editing on it and use it as a base for other art photos. I just played around with it a little but didn't do much with it till today and the migraine. I've worked on it off and on all day and it has helped; I also have music on to help. Like I said this is a tremendously horrible migraine. I've learned alot about the editing program I use and could have gone on and done more with the help of the computer. I used a very limited numbers of options so I could get used to each one and what it did. Once one starts to combine options one could come up with thousands if not millions of combinations especially if one had a more than one editing program with different options. I came up with so many that I decided to college the different edits; each picture is a different edit. Then I saw what a difference making the collage made, so I made different collages with the same edits. I posted only some of the edits and colleges. I kind of went crazy trying to ignore this migraine.
One thing not to try is the proverbial I'll hit your toe with a hammer than you won't feel your headache anymore. Well that may work with some headaches (the body pays the most attention to the part that hurts the most and kind of ignores the rest) but I've broken my foot,not my toe, my foot and didn't know it because my migraine was so bad. Walked around on it for who knows how long, then when I took my sock off that night I could tell from the bruising it was broken (x-rays next day confirmed it). I may not have felt the pain from from the broken foot, but I still felt the migraine. I know from experience that this distraction does indeed work but it's certainly not worth it to add an even bigger pain to get rid of a smaller pain.
PRAYER: Prayer and meditating is the best of all and it can be added to all of the above.