Wednesday Detox Wisdom: Migraine Headaches

Happy Wednesday!  I’m still on the topic of headaches, and how you can treat them without medication in the interest of keeping your body as free of toxins as possible. (This is the last one, I promise, and I’ll move on to something else, though it will probably still be detox-related.)

I promised a post on migraines, because really, no series on headaches would be complete without the Mother Monster of them all.  And I did actually write a rather nice one, but unfortunately I now cannot find it.  Cause disorganization is what I’m all about.  So I’m shooting from the hip here.  Bear with me.

Migraine headaches, as you may know, are caused by dilated (read: swollen) blood vessels in the head.  There is a lot of speculation about what causes this, but while much further research is needed, general consensus seems to be that changes in hormone levels and brain chemistry are to blame.  Interestingly, serotonin seems to be a prime suspect – I say this is interesting because high or low serotonin levels are the culprit in most mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.  I could claim that this is why many migraine sufferers have these disorders, but the truth of the matter is that the human body – brain included – is a very delicate piece of machinery, and an imbalance in one area will almost certainly produce an imbalance in another.  Serotonin is a chemical workhorse, and regulates or affects an enormous number of functions in the brain, so it’s not really surprising or indicative of anything that it’s implicated here.

(It’s also, interestingly, structurally similar to LSD.  Yeah, I know, right?  So if you have too much – well, you do the math.  Explains why my worst panic attacks were more than slightly hallucinatory in nature.)

But I digress.  Migraines.  Anyone who’s ever had one knows that the pain you experience with a migraine can be – is not always, but can be – so far beyond the pain of a garden-variety headache, that they don’t deserve to share a category.  How do you know if it’s a migraine?  Well, here are some typical characteristics:

• Pain that is unilateral – limited generally to one side of the head or the other, though it can be bilateral.  The pain generally centers around the front and upper side of the head, but honestly, it’s generally so severe that it is difficult to pinpoint a locus.
• Extreme sensitivity to light, sound, or both.  In my case, both.  With a severe migraine, it may be literally impossible to tolerate any light, sound, or distractions of any kind.
• Mind-shattering irritability.  I am not kidding here.  You may, and probably will, say and do unforgivable things to anyone who bothers you.  You will probably cry.
• Nausea, which may or may not involve vomiting.  (Generally, by the time I get to the vomiting stage, I know the worst is nearly over where the pain is concerned. This is not true of everyone, however.)
• Visual disturbances, generally in the form of flashing or scintillating lights that can obscure vision in one, or occasionally, both, eyes.  My mom always called this a floater – but the technical term used is an “aura”.  An aura can, interestingly, be experienced without any other symptoms.   If it does, be glad.  You’ve dodged a bullet, at least for this day. 
• The Mayo Clinic says you can experience premonitions of migraines, which can include symptoms such as unusually high energy, extreme thirst, cravings for sweets, drowsiness, or irritability, several hours to a day before the headache strikes.  (I’m not sure how I would know if this happens to me, as I experience nearly all of these on any given day and generally they’re just a sign that I’m, you know, conscious…but it’s an absurdly cool little factoid nevertheless.)
• Some sites reference numbness and/or tingling in body parts, but I’ve never experienced this.  I think if I did, I would immediately talk to my doctor, as this could definitely be a sign of something far more serious.
• You are seriously considering a bullet to the brain as a cure.  That’s a definite migraine red-flag.

So what puts you at risk for migraines?  Not much information out there, really.  Obviously, if someone in your family has or had them, you are at greater risk.  (They think.)  If you’re also female, up that risk some more.  And if you’re of reproductive age to boot?  You just won the migraine lottery.  Congratu-freakin-lations.

Personally, I would suspect that if you’ve ever had a serotonin disorder, you can probably count on an increased risk as well, but that’s just me being all intuitive again.

So what do you do for a migraine?  Honestly?  Though it is not in the spirit of this post, I would say take medication. For this, you are almost going to have to talk to your doctor.  Migraine medications – ones that work – are pretty much exclusively by prescription.  There are even some lovely shots they can give you that work right away, though you’d better not count on undergoing a tax audit or operating even a hand mixer after you get one.  In fact, you’d better be very close to your bed because you’ll be in it before long.

Barring medication, though – or if, like me, you can’t take a lot of migraine medications because they can screw with your heart – there are a few things you can do to at least lessen your suffering, if not eliminate it.

• The proverbial “dark room”.  It’s proverbial because it’s essential.  Lie down in a dark, quiet room.  Close your eyes.  Keep them closed until you no longer want to hack your own head off with a rusty, dull knife.  If you have kids, you may want to lock the door or sell them to gypsies, because their adorably shrill little voices will be considerably less adorable…strikingly akin to a bread knife across your cerebellum, in fact.  However, before doing this, ensure there is another adult standing by to actually provide care for them.  (Hey, when your head hurts this bad, sometimes you don’t think of everything.)
• Ice, applied where the pain centers – again, seems counterintuitive, but this is actually quite helpful for a migraine.  I would surmise that it reduces swelling or some such, but I can’t really say.  I just know it’s helped me.  There are even lovely little sticky patches you can buy called “Migraine Ice” that you slap on your forehead.  They don’t kill the headache, but they can help.
• The acupressure trick that Rose (All Vegged Out) told us about in the comments a few posts ago is really very good for this.  Again, it may not get rid of the problem, but it will buy you at least a few minutes’ relief, and when you’re suffering this much, a few minutes can be golden.

That’s actually all I have, non-medication.  Excedrin can be good, especially if you are able to catch the headache early on.  The combination of aspirin and caffeine (caffeine has a “booster” effect that helps the aspirin work, I have read) can often relieve and sometimes eliminate the pain.  It won’t help the nausea, and if you have the nausea already, I strongly recommend avoiding this remedy unless, you know, you like to vomit.  Personally, not so much.

This is one headache for which my all-time favorite, massage, is just about worthless.  I have never yet had a migraine and been able to tolerate anyone even looking at my head, let alone touching it.  Or any other part of me, for that matter.  Likewise meditation – there’s no way I can sustain the mental discipline to meditate through this kind of pain.  You are welcome to try, though, and if these work for you, please let me know, I will be nauseatingly happy for you.

The best thing for migraines is, if possible, to figure out your triggers and avoid them.  Some common ones include dairy products, red wine (or any alcohol, for some people), chocolate (sacre bleu!), strong odors, and hormonal changes.  Not that you can avoid hormonal changes, sorry.  Personally, mine are usually hormonal.  I had a friend who only got them when she ate oranges, drank orange juice, or even smelled orange-scented spray. (I think it was all in her head.  Ha.  Get it?  All in her…heh.  Sorry.  Sleep-deprived.)

If you do suffer from migraines, I strongly recommend keeping a migraine journal.  Record every instance and what you did, ate, drank, smelled, saw, felt and dreamed for about 24 hours beforehand.  If you get in the habit of doing this, eventually you will figure out your trigger.  Remember to include any instances of painless aura (I believe the technical term is “ocular migraine”), if you have them; they definitely count.

And my strongest recommendation?  As always – but most particularly in this case! – talk to your doctor.  This is one type of headache they can generally help with – and you will want their help.  I’m all about the non-medication remedies – but for migraines, I have to say, take the medication.  Life’s too short to be flattened by pain.

As always, these are my experiences and my observations, and should not be taken as a substitute for medical advice or even your own common sense.  What works for me may not work for you.  And as always, I am most interested in hearing your observations/experiences/comments/feedback/questions.  Do you have them?  Know someone who does or did?  Have suggestions as to other ways to deal with them, or ideas as to possible triggers?  Make some comment noise!

And have a lovely Wednesday. 

**NOTE:  There are lots of other types of headaches, but I’m not going to attempt to address them all.  For one thing, there are types I (thankfully!) haven’t experienced, like cluster headaches.  But for more information, I heartily recommend checking out the Mayo Clinic’s headaches site, as well as MedicineNet and The National Headache Foundation.   I’m not making any claims as to the accurace or reliability of the information found there, but it’s definitely interesting reading.