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Migraine help, please comment
12 years ago
I am looking into what treatments people find most effective for migraines when they come and would also like to suggest my own remedies for anyone that experiences them. I've noticed that as I get older, migraines are happening more frequently rather than simple headaches. While I'll be getting insurance soon to look into why this is happening, I'm interested to see how other people deal with migraine pains.
My current treatment has been relatively effective:
1. I take Ibuprofen ONLY. I avoid caffeine like the plague, which is in a lot of migraine pills that have never seemed to be very effective on me for migraines.
2. Most of my treatment of migraines relate to heat in some way. The first is making myself some hot tea with lemon and honey. I like Island Mango and Peach by Lipton, but I have plain white tea with a brew pot I got for christmas. Plus, at least two bottles of water. (An often overlooked trigger of migraines is dehydration.)
3. Awesome hot/cold eye mask. I bought this from Walgreens during one of my 'can barely see straight' days. Heated that puppy up in the microwave and let it work it's magic on more than just my eyes. Looking into getting another one that is a long tube I can put around the back of my head.
4. If nothing else works, I hop in the tub. Sitting with my back to the shower head, I slowly amp up the heat of the shower until I can barely stand it and then slowly roll my head to let the water hit where I have the most pain. I keep my eyes shut and breathe with my mouth open. I find that the steam and heat plus the soft beating of the water really helps me to relax.
5. While in the shower or after my neck has warmed up, I do a little bit of neck stretches and rolls with a small amount of pressure applied by hand to give some resistance. It helps relieve building tension in the area.
6. Lavender and vanilla aromatherapy. For some reason, this helps. I'm very sensitive to perfumes and colognes and they will actually make me sick, but a combination of lavender and vanilla essential oils in a warming pot help significantly in soothing me during the stress of being in throbbing blinding head pain. (Bath and body works also has a pillow mist called 'sleep' which is lavender and vanilla. I use this regularly now in my room.)
My current treatment has been relatively effective:
1. I take Ibuprofen ONLY. I avoid caffeine like the plague, which is in a lot of migraine pills that have never seemed to be very effective on me for migraines.
2. Most of my treatment of migraines relate to heat in some way. The first is making myself some hot tea with lemon and honey. I like Island Mango and Peach by Lipton, but I have plain white tea with a brew pot I got for christmas. Plus, at least two bottles of water. (An often overlooked trigger of migraines is dehydration.)
3. Awesome hot/cold eye mask. I bought this from Walgreens during one of my 'can barely see straight' days. Heated that puppy up in the microwave and let it work it's magic on more than just my eyes. Looking into getting another one that is a long tube I can put around the back of my head.
4. If nothing else works, I hop in the tub. Sitting with my back to the shower head, I slowly amp up the heat of the shower until I can barely stand it and then slowly roll my head to let the water hit where I have the most pain. I keep my eyes shut and breathe with my mouth open. I find that the steam and heat plus the soft beating of the water really helps me to relax.
5. While in the shower or after my neck has warmed up, I do a little bit of neck stretches and rolls with a small amount of pressure applied by hand to give some resistance. It helps relieve building tension in the area.
6. Lavender and vanilla aromatherapy. For some reason, this helps. I'm very sensitive to perfumes and colognes and they will actually make me sick, but a combination of lavender and vanilla essential oils in a warming pot help significantly in soothing me during the stress of being in throbbing blinding head pain. (Bath and body works also has a pillow mist called 'sleep' which is lavender and vanilla. I use this regularly now in my room.)
I've found the hydration formulas to be more helpful than just water. Also good for hangovers.
See... unlike yours, caffeine is what helps me out immensely
1. The best prescription drug that I found that worked for me back when I was a teenager and suffered pretty severe migraines was imatrex. I used this when it was still in testing phase and they didnt even have a pill for for it yet... it was a self injection shot. I would push the shot pen to my thigh and inject it... then lay down for about 2 hours... killed it. But now that I dont have health insurance... this is what I do
2. Usually I take an OTC migraine medication. Excedrine max strength migraine used to work pretty well... but the more I took it the more immunity my body built up against it... so it no longer works as well =/ Recently I tried Bayer migraine... and it seems to do the trick pretty quickly.
3. pot of coffee... this works wonders for me
4. hot damp rag over my brow area, eyes and temples. This works wonders for quick relief of the pain while the meds kick in. Recently my friend Nardi taught me a pretty cool trick when she had ear aches that worked similarly... which was to heat the damp rag in the microwave and put it in a ziplock bag to trap the heat and steam keeping it warm for much longer.
5. I usually lay in a dark room with my eyes closed applying heat till I can move again without wanting to double over. =3
6. find someone willing to massage with lots of pressure on the back of my neck where my spine connects to the skull... I found that to help greatly as it encourages that back artery to loosen up a bit.
Thats about it... my biggest magic trick when it comes to migraines is keeping my 3 kids quiet o.o thats hard... but they are good and tend to want to help mommy get better, but sometimes, they are just too loud.
But thank you for your methods. I might try the hot damp rag in a baggy! That sounds good.
I believe very much that the soul is manifestly touched in the act of massage. The body is the pathway through which we touch another person’s soul. (And the path through which we mix with that soul, but this is not a post about lovemaking, lol.)
As such, one “soul” may indirectly touch another through the body. Think of it as something like a very soft sheet that one covers their body with. The sheet shows the rough shape of the body, yet it hides the body at the same time. A rough and crude analogy, admittedly, but one that makes the point. By pushing upon the sheet, one still touches what’s underneath- and keeps everything in modesty.
The soul is often burdened by the body, least I have found this to be true. I think modern medicine often ignores this and does not even allow for its significance. I know I have seen many a sick soul destroy a body and it then holds that a sick body could ill a soul.
My rather long winded point friend, is that massage might help you immensely. Much in migraines is related to muscle tightness. Tight, stressed muscles cause the scalp to tighten beyond its tolerance and migraines can result. This is one school of thought anyway. Massage then should do the ideal thing. In my school, we often had migraine patients from the hospital across the street. A simple head and neck massage sometimes works wonders. (A friend tells of a migraine patient he gave a back massage to. Near the end her entire spine had a chain reaction and popped from the middle to both ends. Sacred him so bad he nearly wet himself. Other than one plaintive groan from the woman, she made no complaint and greatly thanked him for the service.)
NEway, you should check out a massage service at least once a month. A head\neck massage does not cost too much and therapist prefer to do them. They are much easier on the hands.
Another one you might consider is a foot massage. I know that’s counter intuitive, but for reasons I shan't go into, (this is your journal, not mine) I highly recommend you look into getting one. Foot massage is even more relaxing than a full body, if done correctly, and can have amazing effects.
All of this seems a little “hippy dippy” I am sure, because the soul is not something that can be placed in an experiment, subjected to heat and cold, magnetic fields and analyzed. Yet it exists. As the playwright said, “More things exist in heaven and earth than have been dreamt of in your philosophy.” The soul is one of them and its resource of eternity can be used to help heal the lacking of the temporal.
One other advice I should give, is to cut back on and then eliminate smoking altogether. Smoke has compounds that science has yet to fully analyze for their effects but is thought to aggravate and prolong migraines, though it can give the immediate effect of relief. There are so many good nicotine replacements from patches to gum to vapor, that there really is no need to smoke anymore. Although if you smoke, my prayers are with you- it will be the hardest thing you have ever tried to break. Many of those unexplored chemicals are addictive as well and are not as present in the alternatives.
Regardless, massage can greatly aid all of those efforts and I recommend that you explore that option. If you would like, note me the city you live in and I shall see if you have a good massage school in the area. Often they work harder than the well paid guys and much cheaper! lastly, I have never heard of massage making anything worse, so you really have nothing to loose.
Sincerely,
Anthony Ficton