How to Eliminate Migraines and Headaches in Less Than a Week

Posted on August 16th, 2007

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More than 10 million Americans have migraines creating a burden of mostly unnecessary suffering.(i) These severe, nearly disabling headaches can occur from once a year to three to four times a week. They can last from hours to days. They are often associated with an aura, light sensitivity, nausea, vomiting, and severe throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head. Migraines are even associated with stroke-like symptoms or paralysis in some cases ...

The cost to society is also enormous. Migraine headaches add $13 billion to $17 billion to our healthcare costs each year. These costs include medications, emergency room visits, hospitalization, physician services (primary care and specialty), laboratory and diagnostic services, and managing the side effects of treatment.

Migraines have indirect costs too. A headache is the most frequent pain-related complaint among workers. Focusing specifically on migraines, one study found that the annual cost to employers exceeded $14.5 billion, of which $7.9 billion was due to absenteeism and $5.4 billion to diminished productivity.(ii)

So this is a HUGE problem -- both to those who suffer and to society as a whole.

Worse, migraines are hard to treat and very difficult to prevent with conventional approaches. There are a host of preventive drugs -- calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers, anti-seizure medications, antidepressants, and more --which work poorly, if at all, and are accompanied by frequent side effects. Some doctors are now even using Botox to paralyze neck muscles in the hopes of easing migraines.

There is also a new class of medication called triptans (like Imitrex, Maxalt, and Zomig) that can stop a migraine once it starts. Though these have made migraine sufferers handle the attacks better, they also have serious potential side effects, including strokes, and are expensive. Still other treatments can lead to addiction or dependence. Not a pretty picture. And for many, none of these treatments work very well or at all.

The problem with migraines is the same one we see so often in medicine: We treat the symptoms, not the cause. We only deal with the effects of something and not the underlying 7 keys to UltraWellness. But using Functional Medicine I have been able to get nearly 100 percent of my patients migraine free within days to weeks!

In today's blog I am going to explain how I do that. I will tell you the story of one of my patients (a doctor herself) who, after years of suffering from migraines, finally came to me looking for relief. You will learn what I did to help her (as well as many others) and how you can apply the same measures to overcome your migraines. And I will give you 14 tips that will help you identify and treat the real causes of your headaches.

Dozens of Migraine Patients, Dozens of Different Cures

Many of my patients are doctors themselves and are often at the end of their rope. One was a physician from the Mayo Clinic, the Mecca of conventional medicine. This woman had severe, disabling migraines that made it nearly impossible for her to function at work. She depended on oxycodone (a strong morphine-like narcotic) and Zofran (a powerful anti-nausea drug used for chemotherapy patients).

She had seen every specialist at the Mayo Clinic and had traveled far and wide to other top neurology headache centers but never found relief. Unfortunately everyone she saw focused on her headaches, not her other symptoms -- which held all of the clues to her problem.

Migraines are no different from any other disease. It's simply the name we call a set of symptoms that are common in groups of people. This name tells us nothing about the cause of the symptoms, which may be very different depending on the person. In fact, there may be more than 20 different causes of migraine headaches!

My job is to be a medical detective and find these causes. It is not to simply prescribe powerful symptom-suppressive drugs. I remember very well working in the emergency room, treating all the chronic migraine patients with intravenous narcotics and nausea medication. I felt bad for them, but worse that I didn't have a way to prevent them from coming back.

Now I do.

Which leads me back to the doctor who came to see me from the Mayo Clinic who suffered migraines nearly every day for years with no relief. Here is what I did to help her ...

First, I asked her a lot of questions and learned she suffered from many symptoms including palpitations, severe constipation, anxiety, insomnia, muscle cramps, and menstrual cramps -- in addition to her migraines.

All of these symptoms are connected. They told me that her whole system was tight, irritable, and crampy. These symptoms are usually associated with severe magnesium deficiency,(iii) which often results from poor diet, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, and stress.

So I put her on high doses of magnesium and cleaned up her diet. Within a couple of days, she was migraine free and never had another migraine.

She's not the only success story.

Another patient had disabling migraines for 45 years and could not have a social life or plan anything because she spent most of her time in bed with the lights out. She also had an allergy to eggs. When we eliminated the eggs from her diet, her headaches disappeared. No eggs, no migraines. Three months after treatment she felt so good she decided to have an egg and ended up in the hospital with a three-day migraine confirming our original finding.

Another patient always had migraines before her period, along with severe PMS, bloating, sugar cravings, breast tenderness, and irritability. These symptoms are all related to hormonal imbalances.(iv) She had too much estrogen and too little progesterone. Getting her hormones back in balance relieved her of her migraines.

Yet another patient had genetic problems with her mitochondria and energy metabolism and needed high doses of vitamin B2 (v) and coenzyme Q10 (vi) to get relief. And another woman came to see me with persistent abdominal bloating after eating, which told me she had overgrowth of bacteria in her small bowel. When we cleared out these bacteria with a non-absorbed antibiotic, her migraines went away and didn't return.

One patient who lived on Diet Coke didn't get rid of her migraines until she gave up the artificial sweetener aspartame. Another had low blood sugar episodes that triggered migraines, so eating small, frequent meals of whole foods stopped the headaches. And finally, there was the woman who got headaches after exercise in the heat or with dehydration. We made sure she stayed hydrated and her migraines were permanently eliminated.

As you can see, even though these patients all had the same symptoms, their treatment was different in each case. So getting the full story -- with the keys of UltraWellness -- is so important. To heal from migraines you have to locate the causes of your headaches and address these underlying issues if you want to be free of pain.

To help you on that journey, here are the most important causes of migraines, their associated symptoms, tests to help identify problems, and treatments you can start using today.

Finding and Curing the Causes of Your Migraines

Food Allergy/Bowel and Gut Imbalances

• The symptoms: Fatigue, brain fog, bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, joint or muscle pain, postnasal drip and sinus congestion, and more.

• The testing: Check an IgG food allergy (vii) panel and also check a celiac panel because wheat and gluten (viii) are among the biggest causes of headaches and migraines. Stool testing and urine testing for yeast or bacterial imbalances that come from the gut can also be helpful.

• The treatment: An elimination diet -- getting rid of gluten, dairy, eggs, and yeast -- is a good way to start. Corn can also be a common problem. Getting the gut healthy with enzymes, probiotics, and omega-3 fats is also important.

Chemical Triggers

• The causes: A processed-food diet including aspartame, MSG (monosodium glutamate), nitrates (in deli meats), sulfites (found in wine, dried fruit, and food from salad bars) is to blame. Tyramine-containing foods like chocolate and cheese are also triggers.

• The treatment: Get rid of additives, sweeteners, sulfites, and processed food. Eat a diet rich in whole foods and phytonutrients.

Hormonal Imbalances

• The causes: Premenstrual syndrome with bloating, fluid retention, cravings, irritability, breast tenderness, menstrual cramps; use of an oral contraceptive pill or hormone replacement therapy; or even just being pre-menopausal, which leads to too much estrogen and not enough progesterone because of changes in ovulation.

• The testing: Blood or saliva hormone testing looks for menopausal changes or too much estrogen.

• The treatment: Eat a whole-foods, low-glycemic-load, high-phytonutrient diet with flax, soy, and cruciferous vegetables. Use herbs such as Vitex, along with magnesium and B6. Avoid alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and refined carbohydrates. Exercise and stress reduction also help.

Magnesium Deficiency

• The symptoms: Anything that feels tight or crampy like headaches, constipation, anxiety, insomnia, irritability, sensitivity to loud noises, muscle cramps or twitching, and palpitations.

• The testing: Check red blood cell magnesium levels. Even this can be normal in the face of total body deficiency, so treatment with magnesium based on the symptoms is the first choice.

• The treatment: Magnesium glycinate, citrate, or aspartate in doses that relieve symptoms or until you get loose bowels. If you have kidney disease of any kind, do this only with a doctor's supervision.

Mitochondrial Imbalances

• The symptoms: Fatigue, muscle aching, and brain fog, although sometimes the only symptom can be migraines.

• The testing: Checking urinary organic acids can be helpful to assess the function of the mitochondria and energy production.

• The treatment: Taking 400 mg of riboflavin (B2) twice a day and 100 to 400 mg a day of coenzyme Q10 can be helpful, as can as other treatments to support the mitochondria.

Keep in mind that sometimes a combination of treatments is necessary. Other treatments can be helpful in selected cases, such as herbal therapies (like feverfew and butterbur), acupuncture, homeopathy, massage, and osteopathic treatment to fix structural problems.

The bottom line is that this problem -- which affects one in five Americans and costs society $24 billion a year -- is almost entirely preventable, simply by following the principles of Functional Medicine and UltraWellness. So get to the bottom of your symptoms -- and get ready for migraine relief. It's the best way to move toward lifelong vibrant health.

Now I'd like to hear from you...

Do you suffer from migraines?

What treatments have you tried and how are they working?

Have you found a connection between the causes I've mentioned and your headaches?

What steps have you taken to address them?

Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

References

(i) Tepper SJ. A pivotal moment in 50 years of headache history: the first American Migraine Study. Headache. 2008 May;48(5):730-1; discussion 732.

(ii) Thomson Medstat, The Thomson Corporation, "New Data Estimate Migraine Headaches Cost U.S. Employers more than $24 Billion Annually," Press Release, 27 June 2006, http://www.medstat.com/news/newsdetail.aspx?id=545 (Accessed 2 August 2006).

(iii) Sun-Edelstein C, Mauskop A. Role of magnesium in the pathogenesis and treatment of migraine. Expert Rev Neurother. 2009 Mar;9(3):369-79. Review.

(iv) Martin VT, Lipton RB. Epidemiology and biology of menstrual migraine. Headache. 2008 Nov-Dec;48 Suppl 3:S124-30. Review.

(v) Schoenen J, Jacquy J, Lenaerts M. Effectiveness of high-dose riboflavin in migraine prophylaxis. A randomized controlled trial. Neurology. 1998 Feb;50(2):466-70.

(vi) Sándor PS, Di Clemente L, Coppola G, Saenger U, Fumal A, Magis D, Seidel L, Agosti RM, Schoenen J. Efficacy of coenzyme Q10 in migraine prophylaxis: a randomized controlled trial. Neurology. 2005 Feb 22;64(4):713-5.

(vii) Arroyave Hernández CM, Echevarría Pinto M, Hernández Montiel HL. Food allergy mediated by IgG antibodies associated with migraine in adults. Rev Alerg Mex. 2007 Sep-Oct;54(5):162-8.

(ix) Bürk K, Farecki ML, Lamprecht G, Roth G, Decker P, Weller M, Rammensee HG, Oertel W. Neurological symptoms in patients with biopsy proven celiac disease. Mov Disord. 2009 Dec 15;24(16):2358-62.

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re: How to eliminate migraines and headaches in less than a wee

Dr. Hyman's information regarding the role magnesium plays in headaches was very enlightening. I've been taking magnesium citrate since last year when I first did his detox program (The Detox Box) and have gone from monthly migraines to almost zero migraines. I'm certain the additional supplements I take and the changes to my diet have helped as well. My son has autism, and I've noticed that since he has been taking similar supplements including magnesium his reaction to loud noises has also decreased! I didn't know there was a connection between anxiety, irritability, insomnia, less tolerance to loud noise (he has problems with all of the above) and a magnesium deficiency. I thought it was all due to his sensitive hearing, but maybe he has sensitive hearing because he had a magnesium deficiency? Thank you Dr. Hyman for your great books and fantastic website.

by Anonymous at 09:57 AM on 08/16/07

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How to Eliminate Migraines and Headaches in Less Than a Week

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