Process of Elimination

There has been a great physical, mental, emotional and spiritual movement in my house. My husband and I have been working hard at the gym. We've been talking our problems out and having been taking the time to be with God. It has made a huge difference in my migraine care.
It has also been another process of elimination of sorts for me, too. Back in CO, I started working on my migraine care, but really lost touch with it when we moved. There has been a ton of stress in our lives in the past year. Job interviews and visits for my husband, a bad work situation, my mother became terminally ill and passed last October. And, not to mention, moving across country and have three children 9, 5 & 2. And of course, getting used to a new place, with a whole new set of environmental factors. Some changes have been good and some have been tough. But overall, we are doing well and the kids have adjusted greatly.
One aspect of my migraine care I've finally decided to take seriously was eliminated things from my diet and habits that I knew had the potential to cause a migraine. Of course, there are still things I can't control like, hormones and changing weather patterns. I found myself just wanted to get rid of the stuff after years of saying I 'have' to or I 'need' to, I decided I wanted to. And that makes a huge difference in making changes.
My Neurologist is firmly against using caffeine in any way. To either boost your energy, which you eventually end up worse off, to using it to help a headache. That was a bad cycle I had gotten into when my husband was out of town a month ago. It wasn't pleasant when it wore off. I've also realized my need to reduce muscle tension. This is something that is really bad for me and really struggle with. One thing that added to it was chewing gum. So, that ones out! I also , after a few 'fun' nights decided that alcohol just wasn't worth it. If I do have a drink, it is a vodka one because I can handle that the best. Also, I limit myself to just a couple. There have been other lifestyle changes too that I'm sure a good for the migraine too, like eating better and exercising more.
So, I've eliminated and added to hopefully help. I am back to around once a week. It can be more depended on my stress level. One thing that has really helped lower my stress level is learning to lower my expectations. I don't need to put so much pressure to perform all the time on myself and realized that sometimes what I've done or accomplished is good enough. A lot of my tension comes from those elusive expectations. Like being the perfect mom, who can be a shrink, teacher, minister and disciplinarian to her children. I've lightened my mental load.
Even though this has helped a lot for my mental and emotional well being, I still have a lot of tension in my muscles. Mainly on my head, neck and shoulders. This may need some help from the doctor. The massages have been great but I just can't seem to stop tensing. So, this will be my next area to explore. Besides medication, I want to try chiropractics, maybe acupuncture. We'll see. I need to call my doctor first. And yes, I've been doing stretches, heat and relaxation techniques.