by

Suzann Wang Edwards, ND

Migraine headaches are severe recurring headaches that afflict approximately 17% of women in the United states and 6% of men.  Many people who experience these headaches are sensitive to light or sound, may experience nausea and/or vomiting, diarrhea, or have cold hands or feet.  About 20% of people with migraine headaches will experience visual auras such as floaters, blind spots and visual waves.  These auras are typically visual but more rarely may be related to altered smell, altered taste or the sensation of pins and needles.  Recently, studies indicate that young women with frequent migraine headaches are 2.16 times more at risk for developing a stroke than women without migraine headaches.  This brings the risk to approximately one in 5000 women with migraine headaches will likely develop a stroke early in their lives (under 45 years of age).  With the use of oral contraceptives this risk more than triples.  The greater risk of stroke is for women with migraine headaches that have auras associated with the onset of the migraines. 

Migraine headaches usually last between 4 and 72 hours.  Many people can sense the beginnings of the start of a migraine.  Common pre-migraine headache symptoms include fatigue, sleepiness, irritability, depression, euphoria, cravings for sweet or salty foods, or yawning.  Usually migraine headaches have a trigger.  Common triggers for migraine headaches include changes in temperature (heat or cold), skipped meals, ingesting some foods, lack of sleep.  Although these are common triggers for migraine headaches, I've found that most of my patients have difficulty identifying their trigger.  It is important to note that all migraines DO usually have an environmental trigger.  It is the role of your doctor to help you identify these triggers and to assess why you might have a risk of developing a migraine because of common everyday events that may trigger pain in you. 

Naturopathic medicine has excellent success in the elimination of migraine headaches.  Regardless of frequency or intensity of migraines, all of our patients will eventually experience relief from these debilitating and annoying headaches.  The importance of identifying and treating the cause of the migraine headaches cannot be overemphasized.  Frequently, food sensitivities or food allergies will play a large role in the triggering of headaches.  However, many people have many foods that will trigger a migraine headache so a systematic way of identifying the food allergy and then using NAET allergy elimination technique to eliminate the food allergy is important in many people's healing process.  Stress and one's stress management techniques are often another root cause of migraine headaches.  Here we often use EFT (emotional freedom technique) , auriculotherapy (ear acupressure technique), or energy healing to deal with stress.  Environmental toxins and more specifically your body's ability to detoxify from the exposure of these everyday toxins are also frequently addressed in healing a person from migraines.  Instrumental in this include doing castor oil packs to the liver while one is feeling the onset of a migraine headache. 

Frequently, I utilize homeopathic remedies for prevention or acute management of the headaches.  Once the correct remedy is identified the pain can be eliminated quickly and recurrence is few and far between. 

The improvement that patients experience will vary but frequently patients will have a large reduction in the frequency or severity of migraines within the first month.  As we remove the underlying causes of the migraines, the body recovers easily and patients should expect to be migraine free in 1-6 months.  As naturopathic doctors we work to heal the body and the mind, the goal is to be free of any medications and/or supplements at the end of treatment.