Migraine

[Abiel]

does anyone have a natural remedy that helps- I dont mean to the exclusion of painkillers. It is just that when I have a migraine, even when I take painrelief, I am still not well.

 

[Mary_Magdalene]

Hi!

I have tracked my migraines and found they correspond with my monthly cycles.

I started taking this: www.avlimil.com to regulate my hormones and it has worked like a charm!

It's all natural and I went from having to go to the dr for a morphine shot once a month to not getting any at all.

 

[GK]

Creative worship works for me.

Seriously. I can have a killer migraine. If I pick up a guitar and start playing and singing in worship to Our Lord or if I can pick up a pencil and begin to draw, or anything else like that that turns my focus 100% on God, the pain of the migraine will go away and the relief lasts beyond just the time in direct worship.

I don't mean to suggest we should "use" worship for personal gain, but there's something about moving the focus away from my self that I later notice has impacted the experience of the migraine.

 

[PureGrace]

Hmm I dont have any natural remedies, and too suffer from little or no relief when taking regular pain killers when a migraine hits...I know you will have recommendations up the wazoo, but I am on a medicine called "amitriptalyne" (or at least I think thats how its spelled) and it has helped tremendously.

 

[Silent Enigma]

About once every other month I get a whammy of a headache. I wake up with it and its so bad it makes me throw up and heave and heave and heave for most of a day. Can't even drink water, I just barf it up. Odd that a headache makes you do that.

I don't know anything natural for it but I haven't looked, so I'm not too helpful there.

 

[Abiel]

Hi!

I have tracked my migraines and found they correspond with my monthly cycles.

I started taking this: www.avlimil.com to regulate my hormones and it has worked like a charm!

It's all natural and I went from having to go to the dr for a morphine shot once a month to not getting any at all.

Hmm. When I google this in the UK it comes up with some really dodgy sites.

 

[Abiel]

Thanks for the worship suggestion. I will give that a try. Distraction is certainly a stratagy that works when I am hit with tinnatus. ( what a sorry wreck I am!)

 

[Mary_Magdalene]

Hmm. When I google this in the UK it comes up with some really dodgy sites.

hmmm... this is the company that makes it:

Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals


maybe try to google that instead.

 

[UberLutheran]

The things I have found work for me (most of these are prescription):

•Atenolol (lowers cranial blood pressure)
•Oxygen -- will work if I use it right at the beginning of the headache
•Hydrocodone (I take two at the onset of the headache, with a small bit of food like yogurt).
•Making sure I don't oversleep
•Yoga (which I started taking because I've becoming less agile) really seem to help! I'm not sure why -- it just does!

This may or may not apply in your case, but where I was getting these headaches four times a week (four years ago), now I get one every three months and they're relatively mild.

You have my most profound sympathy with these headaches!

 

[rosemoss]

I use ice packs with bad headaches or migraines, I usually move it around from top of head to back of neck to forehead and face, it helps quite a bit. When I get to the point that I still have the headache but stomach is a little better, I'll drink peppermint tea and eat saltines, helps keep something on my stomach so I can take meds.
Take care,
God Bless,

rosemoss

 

[searchingforGodlyanswers]

I just read today that a deficiency of CoQ10 (First magazine 4/24/06 page 25) can cause migraines, fatigue, brain fog, depression, frequent colds/weakened immunity, insomnia, muscle aches, and chronic gum disease.

I personally have been placed on amitryptylline and some other migraine medicine Axert or Axon or something like that (don't remember spelling of both) in the past year. Do not mix these together! I stopped taking them because I am not supposed to go outside for long, I became too drowsy, and because of the side effects and they can cause potential problems and heart problems already run in the family.
I was diagnosed with a variety of different things over the years.
Migraines, tension headaches, mechanical headaches, scoliosis, muscle spasms (right after one of the car accidents), congenital defomity, calcium deposit in the back of my neck, and so on. Some people just thought it was mental or "stress" (which can be ha ha one of my stressors!), etc.
I have been more recently diagnosed with scar tissue and arthritis, which makes more sense than what the doctors of medicine diagnosed me with. They just seemed to diagnose the symptoms and treat the symptoms (which isn't too bad when you're pumped up with a shot in each side of your rear and feeling theeffects of the phenergan and probably morphine or some other similar pain killer). Like the pamphlets say in the chiropractors office, headaches do not come from a lack of aspirin or painkillers! So why should we just pop something mindlessly down our throats instead of treating it at the roots! Doesn't the Bible talk about the roots and the fruits? Find out what the root cause is. (Let me give you an example here: you don't want to take sugar pills, pain killers, and mental pills to prevent the pain of a second heart attack and to help you deal with the stress of the heart attack if you have high blood pressure and high cholesterol instead that led to a heart attack in the first place!)
What I would suggest is get a really good doctor. If yours is not good enough or helping, keep going around to different sources, or add on more sources to check you out.

Exercise (when I don't have a pounding head but am rather stiff), physical therapy (even when in intense pain-and yeah I have had times where I had to have someone else drive me there I was in a bad bad way), and chiropractic care (again have had times that I wanted someone to drive me there), and laying down flat on the bed or floor to straighten out my back all seem to have worked for me. In the chiropractor's office and physical therapy office, I have gotten electro-stimulation (doodads placed between my shoulders where the whiplash injury is and put at a low setting not a setting that would aggravate my condition and make my nerves and muscles spasm & you can supposedly buy one at a chiropractor's office for a couple to few hundred dollars), x-rays, heat, massage, advice (such as not to stay on the pc long and also a 20-30 min time limit and to get up and stretch and walk around a bit which all takes discipline), stretches to do, and confirmation that it is not all psychological! Also getting away from "stressors" help too. Some people say things like cheese, chocolate, tyrosine, too much or too little sleep, too much or too little lighting, not wearing necessary eyeglasses, lights, and so on can provoke them or make them worse.
I used to have pain every day at my mother in laws. I would wake up with it in my neck and then it would go literally straight to my forehead (instead of doing the typical tension headache fashion). I displayed what seemed like symptoms of every headache ever known to (wo)man. My symptoms seemed to differ at various times. After moving out into a different house, I still had pain where I writhed on the bed/floor and actually thought I'd be better off if God were to smite me dead. Good thing for me HE did not think so! I had even vomited blood at one point and had to have someone else drive me to the hospital because I was freaking out (and had been popping all kinds of pills all day--turned out it could have been my hormones that particular day), it made me so sick. At other times I would just get on my knees and gag and drool (highly unpleasant to go through + the pain made it worse with me writhing and then being utterly exhausted to the point of oversleeping and then tossing and turning while sleeping).
At my child's school, the principal suggested a faith healing. I was hesitant at first but I figgured what do I have to lose. I was desparate (whereas before the move to a different house I was desparate enough to want someone to cut into me and operate and was well aware of the possibility of paralysis or even death if doctors made a mistake- I had just wanted the pain gone) and did not want to go back to doctors at that point, because I still had pains and had them less frequently after the move but still more than I wanted to tolerate and at high intensity where I could not be a good mother to my own child (where I would have to tell her I did not know if I could take her to the park that day or the next few days or where she had to eat just snacks or I would have to muster every thing in me just to make it to pick her up and bring her back to the house and fix her something to eat before I lay down). Just within days before the faith healing, I noticed a difference, and I am still counting on God to continue HIS good works in me.
It wasn't until I wacked the back of my neck fairly recently hard enough to flare me up again that I started seeing a doctor of chiropractic care, who also has mentioned that chiropractic care and physical therapy works good together. I had also considered going to a doctor who specialized in arthritis like a rheumatologist or bone and joint doctor (orthopedic surgeon/etc.?) because that is what I had been suspecting for many months was wrong with me-arthritis and someone else had even mentioned scar tissue. As has been mentioned before about the devil, I used to compare these headaches to the devil (joy)riding my back poking me with his picthfork and kicking or hitting me. The headaches would even vary in their symptoms at times, depending on the circumstances.
It is a miracle that they have been reduced in frequency and intensity! A miracle!
I would highly reccommend a faith healing.
Also there is a Bible verse to support the pictures that some people may have in their minds when going through these headaches, migraines or any others: that we battle not flesh and blood/bone but rather against principalities/spirits/etc.
And it also mentions to submit yourself to God (first), resist the devil, and he (the devil) will flee. Also there is a place in the New Testament that mentions something about stand and God will fight for you. Kudos to the person who thought of worshipping God during this. I have actually at one time tried to get out and do some shopping when going through one, just to get it over with, and it got much worse, but maybe if I had just submitted to God first....! *Ow*
The lady who gave me several reccommendations as for doctors (including a urologist!) also told me of someone who had migraines. It was finally discovered that this person was sensitive to fumes (from paint or paint thinner I think). So you might want to get tested for sensitivies to certain stimuli.
You need to find out what aggravates your condition(s) and avoid these stressors or situations as much as possible. I was told today at the chiropractor's office that there was a test done in which a lot of money was spent to prove that the weather (and moon) does not affect people (arthritis etc.). I simply told her to tell that to my back, lol, Even when I do not know if it is raining outside, it (upper back) does, and it had awakened me in the middle of the night.
I am taking now MSM, chondroitin, glucosamine, calcium, and multivitamins for diabetics. I am also considering taking coQ10 (coenzyme Q10) as this was suggested years ago to my mother for her problems.
Other things I do is taking hot showers for when I wake up stiff (I do not reccommend when you have a migraine but rather cold water may help decrease any inflammation in your veins and so on); it seemed to me last year that when I caught it early enough, I could use heat and move around a little which sometimes helped (but not all the time), and when it developed into a "full-blown headache/migraine" (my special term for it) I used ice cold drinks behind my head (or bottles full of frozen water) with washrags on my forehead and face sometimes laying in a dark quiet room and popped pills (my favorites are naproxen sodium and ibuprofen, and if I can get it when it gets bad enough, an occasional darvocet, all with a little caffeine). If caffeine aggravates your situation and you take the OTC route, be sure to check them first for it. I have tried switching around the pills and not taking them if I don't need it too much.
Another thing I have to be careful about is how I sit. If I sit too long at the pc or sit the wrong way or stand up slouched, it can aggravate me too. I also have had problems with my feet (which the chiropractor told me some of my problems could also be coming from needing more support).
I too have noticed an intensity and higher frequency just before that time of month. I have also been diagnosed with dysmenorrhea, which certain medications can lighten the symptoms of (you can ask the ob/gyn about this).
Naproxen sodium helps me too. I also use what is called biofreeze and other rub-ons which also helps me big time.
I even feel better knowing it is not all in my head (as some have tried to say that and "nervous condition") making me sound mental and like I belong on mental pills like amitrip--it's a trip all right--straight to sleepy land still with pain, but rather a result of the accidents I have had. I have even sprained my back some years ago and all the meds they gave me in the hospital, even when I overdid it still did not take the pain away. Last November when I sprained my back, I just dealt with it the best I could (and believe me I could barely move and I won't go into details lol ).
I have been told that these are the stressors that can aggravate my condition: chemical (I am assuming is hormonal and medical and nutritional), environmental, mental (do I need to explain that one lol), physical (such as straining my neck muscles to do sit ups or carry the heavy carpet cleaner upstairs and so on and then the actual physical problems).

What you need is to find what works for you.