Do You Have Headaches?

Many people struggle with all forms of headaches, constantly looking for relief.  Your family doctor may have tried you on a lot of different medications with varying levels of success.  Here are a few different things that I might add from a different perspective. 

PLEASE keep in mind:  ANY headache that changes in character NEEDS to be evaluated by your family doctor to be sure that nothing more serious is going on.  The following measures are to be tried ONLY AFTER you know that your headaches are not due to a more serious condition.  As always, talk with your doctor about any significant changes you may make in medications and treatments.

1. Do you take Magnesium on a regular basis?  This works well as a preventative (daily supplement to prevent the onset of a headache).  I recommend it for a wide variety of problems:  stress, muscle cramps/spasms, bronchospasms/asthma, headache prevention (tension and migraine for many people), constipation, fibromyalgia syndrome and restless leg syndrome.  It works due to actings as a key to open the gate and allowing the calcium into the cells and relaxing the muscle fibers. It may not be the only treatment for these problems, but it certainly helps.  Usual dosing is 200-2000 mg by mouth a day.  You can't over dose on it because you'll get diarrhea long before it can happen.  Take it till you are on the edge of loose stools for maximum benefit.  This dose may vary from day to day as stress levels and physical activity levels vary daily.

2. Do you have adequate Sea Salt in your diet?   I have several patients who have cut salt out of their diets due to the cardiovascular hype of a low sodium diet, but then have cut out the minerals needed from the sea salt.  Adequate water is key (1/2 oz per lb of your weight as a baseline) but then add in 1-1.5 tsp of sea salt (I just put some in my hand, take it like a pill and chase it with a glass of water every morning.)  I have found that using table salt (refined) triggers edema/swelling in legs due to the lack of minerals needed to keep the fluid inside the cells and not outside the cells (edema).  Sea salt has not caused the same problem for many people, in fact, I found that leg edema often does better once the patient started using the sea salt and ditched table salt altogether (I recommend iodine supplements for iodine instead of table salt.)

*** If you have a reason given to you to restrict your salt intake, be careful with this one! ***

3. Are you eating something in your daily diet to which you may have a low grade allergy?  Tracking a food diary often shows up foods that we eat daily that are the culprit.  Pick a food that you eat on a regular basis (wheat, soy, eggs, dairy, etc) and eliminate it for a month.  It may take several days to a week or more to be out of your system before you clear it completely.  After 3-4 weeks off of the food, try re-introducing it to your diet.  Keep in mind that it may take a few days before you have the full reaction to the reintroduction and get a headache again.  

   Check your pulse as well.  If your pulse increases by 10-15 beats per minute within about 20-40 minutes of eating something, you are probably allergic to it (IgG, not IgE reaction.)  (I found that my baseline pulse dropped from the mid 80's to the low 70's within two weeks of eliminating wheat, where as it could jump to >100 after eating wheat... along with a host of other reactions.)  I have one patient who found out that bakers yeast was the cause of her 24/7 headache, thus elimination gave her huge relief.

   There are also many migraine triggers that are not allergies: red wine, smoked cheeses, foods with MSG, chocolate, nutrasweet, etc....  Any artificial sweetener may be a key trigger.  Nasty stuff!

4. If you take an abortive medication (meds to STOP the headache, even tylenol or ibuprofen) daily, you may actually be experiencing rebound headaches.  A bugger to treat... you need to go cold turkey off of all headache meds for a time to see how you do for that one.

5. Have you tried a high quality 5-HTP?  I typically recommend it as a preventative.  This is an over the counter supplement, but I usually recommend working with your family doctor with this one.  5-HTP is a building block for the body to make serotonin in the brain, so if you are on ANY antidepressants, you MUST work with your doctor as you could have a VERY BAD reaction, called serotonin syndrome, if you use the two together without proper monitoring.  Many headaches respond to serotonin, thus a constant supply via the 5-HTP is really helpful.  Dosing varies between 50mg to 300mg daily. Go up gradually, by 50-100mg every 3-5 days if needed. When properly monitored, I have found this to be a very safe way to prevent headaches, even in children.

6.  Have you seen a DO who does Cranial Osteopathy?  Many headaches (tension and migraine and any variation therein) are triggered by old head or sacral/tailbone traumas that need to be worked upon and released.  Just keep in mind, it often takes a lot of work to unlock "jammed heads and sacrums."

7.  I have some handouts here on the website that might be helpful.  Look for the "Upper Back/Neck Stretching Exercises" and the "Lifestyle Basics" handouts.  On the left side of this page, go to the "Educational Materials" -> "Files for download" and find the pages in PDF files.  There's a handout for lower back exercises too... in case you ever need it.