What Gill says about magnesium correlates with my own experience. Magnesium (and calcium) is just about the only natural thing that can have any significant impact on migraine. Occasionally putting ice on my head and heat on my neck will help also.
For those suggesting comedy for migraines, it is a very sweet suggestion, but it really has no impact, and tends to minimize a very real and painful issue.
One of the most frustrating things about this "disease"- suffering from migraines, is well-meaning people (who have never had to deal with chronic migraine) giving you all sorts of advice.
I have heard:
1. cut back your meat
2. don't eat cheese
3. eat cheese
4. watch a funny movie
5. go for a walk
6. get more exercise
7. take a bath with lavendar
8. take: feverfew, butterbur, multivitamin, neutriceuticals, apple cider vinegar, vitamin B, eat a vodka raisin, etc, etc ad nauseum
9. get a massage
10. try drug x, y, z.
11. talk therapy
12 drink wine
13 don't drink wine
14 have a shot of brandy
15 steam tent
16 drink a glass of water
17 try benadryl
18 eat less salt
19 eat more salt
20--- and so on.
My favorite is the one my mother used to say:
"Tell your headache to go away."
Others have also told me this, suggesting that it is the power of the mind, and if I can't do it and resolve the pain that I really must want the headache, or be getting something out of it.
My husband will well-meaningly ask me if I have taken something, (meaning pills.) More about this later.
At one point or another I have tried every single one of the above suggestions, including probably 3x that many more "remedies."
Currently, my migraine ritual (when you have chronic pain, you develop a ritual to help you cope,) looks something like this:
3am wake up with blinding migraine.
lay there for 2-3 hours perfectly still, in denial.
get up at 5am, get ice pack, lay left side of head on ice pack until pack is warm
get up, take a handful of magnesium (sometimes with calcium based antacid- they dissolve quickly,) get in HOT bath.
stay in bath until the water goes tepid
get out of bath
take migraine pill*
lay in chair (laz-y-boy) for 1 hour to see if drugs work
if not:
get back in hot bath
take advil
drink gatorade
drink coffee
put ice on head
get out of bath
get back in bed and lay perfectly still
take more advil
take more magnesium/calcium
Hopefully, at this point, things are starting to ease up, but not always.
This routine is what I went through this morning. Fortunately, this is one of the days where I only had to go through one round of ice/bath/migraine pill/advil. I feel like I got hit by a cement truck, but as long as I'm careful, I don't feel the pain in my head.
*Why didn't I take the migraine pill at the first sign of migraine?
Good question.
I get 6 pills per month covered by insurance. Out of pocket cost for these pills is $30 each. Not 30 cents. That's dollars. I tend to hoard them, some migraines last 2-3 days, and I need to have a little stash of them for these occasions, or I may end up going for another trip to the ER. Some months I need one, others I take all 6 and then dip into the stash.
The pills are Relpax (Eletriptan HBr) which is in the same drug family as Imitrex (sumatriptan). Triptans work by binding to the serotonin receptors in the brain, preventing the release of peptides, which are responsible for some inflammatory reactions, particularly in nerve endings and blood vessels. They are highly effective for intermittent, "normal" migraine. They are not that effective with long-term migraine, so are not a good choice for someone with daily pain.
When I have a headache, I have to decide if it is a normal headache, normal migraine, hormonal migraine or muscle tension. My migraine pill will only work for one of these. If I don't take the right drug, it limits my options for other medication. For instance, a muscle tension migraine can be resolved by using an anti-emetic, since it relaxes everything. If I take the migraine drug, I can't take the anti-emetic for 12 hours.
Sometimes deciding on the type of headache can take several hours for other symptoms (besides pain,) to emerge.
Triptans can cause heart attacks. It is very rare, but a known risk. So everytime I take a pill, a part of me wonders if this is the time that could kill me. It's a small price to pay. Perhaps that puts it in perspective.
Fortunately for me, I now only suffer occasionally, and I'd rather deal with that, than a daily and chronic pain condition, such as rheumatoid arthritis. But when they come on, they are horrible. Having migraines has affected my life's choices: I have no children because I do not think I could survive nearly a year of no access to heavy-duty pain medications. A critical component of all traveling is making sure I have enough medication hoarded to last an entire trip, even if I need daily use. Also, I usually schedule massage, chiropractic and acupuncture for the week preceding each trip, to be sure I am in the best possible condition before leaving. I never, ever "let loose" during parties, because having that "one last drink" could put me into a migraine episode.
When I was 19, my migraines went into remission. I didn't have a single headache of any kind for 7 months. I always hope that it will happen again. Since I was 20 years old, the longest I've ever gone without a headache or migraine was 5 weeks.
If you have never had migraines, you probably know someone who has. I hope this helps you understand what a typical migraineur goes through.
