No More Drugs! No More Migraines

On the 10th of September I decided that the only way out of my misery is to stop taking the migraine pills.

For two and a half months I was feeling very tired. I had migraines every now and then and as if this was not enough I had an episode of pinched nerve in my neck, which radiates pain to my left hand. I would drag through the days – life seemed like a real punishment. It was our Israeli hot, humid and sticky summer. Waking up in the morning hardly pulling myself out of bed, checking to see if it is a migraine day and asking myself – who needs that – I didn’t want to go on living like this, but I did.

My blood check showed that I was low on B12. So I got shots and pills and ate food loaded with B12. After two month my B12 jumped to almost the maximum permitted but I felt the same.

So what is it? The only other thing I could think of was that my body is unable to cope with the damage caused by the Triptans and is signaling me to stop.

So I stopped the last time I took a pill was on September 10, 16 days ago. Last Monday the 21th of September I woke up feeling better. Like a hole was punctured in the fog of tiredness that surrounded me for the last two months. This feeling improved from day to day.

It is so great to feel well again. I am so happy. I enjoy working in the garden, meeting people, just walking around and feeling alive again. I feel I got my life back.

I decided to avoid those pills for 6 months, and hopefully after that it will be no more pills for ever.

Since I stopped the pills I had 5 days of mild migraine. I didn’t lay in bed. I just took it easy on those days. I continue with my daily Yoga exercises to release the neck muscles. I use the shoulder stand to wash my head with lots of blood and clear the waste away.

I try with this blog to scream the message to others. I know several people that live on those pills and suffer badly. The doctors should warn us when we start that this might happen, but they do not say a word about it.

I still remember the day I went to my migraine specialist and told her I am having migraines every other day. She smiled to me and said quietly you got addicted to those pills. I was in a shock, why didn’t she warn me this might happen? Why did she tell me to take the pill with the first signs of a migraine?

I am writing this blog with the hope that others with migraine will benefit from it. But somehow I am unable to reach others.

Hana Galperin

Can Medication be considered Headache Treatment?

My search for a treatment a solution a stop to the headaches is never ending. It will end only when I will find the solution.

Each time I encounter a new serious web-site or blog which talks about Migraines I do a thorough check. Again and again I am disappointed to find out that it mainly talks medications as a way to treat headaches. They also spend a lot describing the different types of headaches.

I am diagnosed as having migraines, while I suffer from tensed neck muscles and lately I realized that they are the cause of my headaches.

So what is it? What label should I put on my pain?

Will a different label attached to those long days of suffer change anything?

No, it won’t. The doctors long gave up of being able to help me… They are giving me those prescriptions through the phone and that it.

A big portion of  headaches are caused by medication. As I cited in other posts, this findings are based on extensive research, and yet most of what you can find about treating headaches is medication.

I was advised to take the pill with the first signs of an headache.

Is this such a good advice?

I think this is one of the worst advice I was given.

We should try to avoid medication and postpone swallowing the pill to the time we are unable to stand the pain. It is true that it makes the pill less effective, i.e. it takes longer to relieve the pain and in some rare occasions it might even be ineffective, but we may prevent the Medication Overuse Headaches, simply by not overusing them.

I learned it the hard way. I already suffer for several years from MOH. If only someone would have warned me…

Now back to the question – Can Medication be considered Headache Treatment?

No. Medication don’t treat the cause of the headaches. Medication help with the symptom, the headache. Unless we do something to eliminate the cause of the headache, the headaches will appear again and again, more frequently and more painful. And some of the headaches will be caused by the medication.

Hana Galperin

Be Careful With Headache Medication – Or Suffer More

This headline is taken from a very good article written by Rosalyn Carson-DeWitt, for About.com.

This article sites research done on the issue of Medication Overuse Headaches (MOH) and covers all aspects. Which medication might cause it – all medication used to treat headaches – prevailing suggestion of the causes, suggestions how to prevent it and how to treat it and more.

I don’t know how this is dealt with elsewhere, but I know that the doctors I consulted are not very supportive in this respect. I suffer from MOH now for several years and every few months I go through few days of torment with headache to break the cycle. I just lie in bed and pray to die, never knowing when this suffer may end. I have a rule, after taking 3 pills in a row every day or two I stop taking them and just wait for the migraine to end.

I am writing now at the end of such a strike. Today is Friday. It started on Sunday. The headache is still there but in a low volume and I hope we are going to say goodbye to each other soon.

I was hoping that with all that I was doing to prevent headaches or stop them as they start I will be able to avoid this suffer, but obviously I was wrong. I guess this is due to the B12 deficiency that was discovered over two months ago and the weakness caused by it. I am trying to stay hopeful, but it is not easy.  The only bright side in this sad story is the wonderful support I get from my spouse Aaron.

Hana Galperin

Is medication the right solution for migraines?

Have you heard about the NHF (National Headache Foundation)?

A link led me to an article in their web-site. I started reading and it sounded promising, I quote:

““No one has the same combination of headache pain, frequency, impairment or triggers,” says Roger Cady, M.D., vice president of the NHF board of directors, and director of the Headache Care Center in Springfield, MO.  “So, the approach to headache care needs to be as personal as the headaches.   The sufferer needs to get involved in charting a course to relief based upon an understanding of their own personal headache patterns, and getting connected with helpful, sometimes life-changing resources.”

I thought that sounds great. So I registered and filled the questionnaire only to realize that they do not offer anything new and it is mainly about medication. I guess that if you are one of those sufferers that suffer and do nothing about it, it might help you. But for me after trying so many different treatment and giving each one a honest chance, sometimes a year sometimes even more, this was a disappointment.

I totally agree with one thing, each one of us needs to take care of himself and find his way out of the migraines.

Hana Galperin

What have I learnt about migraine elimination?

It’s been 4 months since I started to study my headaches with the goal of freeing myself from the suffer.

I would like to sum up what I learned so far:

1. Migraine is not a disease it is a genetic neurological condition, it is more like a symptom. We never look for a cure for fever; we look for the cause of the fever and treat the cause and not the symptom. The causes of migraine can vary from person to person and for the same person from one attack to another. We have pills to stop the migraine pain the same way we have pills to lower fever.
2. Each one of us needs to find out the different causes for his migraines. This requires a lot of attention while we suffer, not the best time. Knowing that this migraine episode is another lesson, might help.
3. The pills we take to stop the pain may become the cause of more headaches; this is called Medication Overuse Headache (MOH).
4. We can learn to stop the migraine when it starts. It requires a patient learning process.
5. We can lower the frequency of migraines. Again this is something every person should find out for himself.
6. There are similarities so we can share what we find.
7. I do Yoga 20-30 minutes each morning and evening. This is very helpful and I enjoy it.
8. I failed to find others to join me.

Hana Galperin

Loosening the neck muscles – preventing Migraine

Every morning and before I go to bed I do a series of exercises to loosen my neck muscles. During the day, every now and then, when I remember I do head retraction. It is something I can do even while listening to others in a meeting.

It’s now two weeks of this new routine. In the first week I allowed myself to skip the night session after a Yoga  class and woke up in the middle of that night with a migraine. NO GOOD! – I learnt the lesson and since then I do it each day – no skipping. 9 days – NO MIGRAINE – KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

During this week I was extremely tired. Being tired leads to thoughts that bring me down. But it didn’t cause a Migraine. I am tired of people insisting that the migraine have always a psychological reason.

For people with a long history of migraine, the migraine is a learnt reaction of the body to specific personal distress. It is a “program” that is activated automatically. Joe Dispenza (http://www.drjoedispenza.com/) explains this phenomena in details in his book  “Evolve your Brain”. I emphasize the word personal. We need to remember it is different between different people and it is different for the same person during different periods of his life. It can be anything physical, emotional or a combination. Each one of us, migraine sufferers needs to find what causes his migraines now and learn to prevent it. If the “program” that leads to a migraine, is not used after a while it is erased.

We need to remember that triggering a migraine is the way our body responds to distress, therefore we need to watch out for any new reason and eliminate it before it becomes a “hard-to-erase-program” in our body.

Hana Galperin

Learning how to stop the migraine

Being my own therapist means that I have to find the way to:

• Stop the migraine
• Prevent them

Since 99% of my migraine start in the middle of the night. I considered not going to sleep, but they say I won’t survive…

The migraines starting at night are the result of my tight neck muscle. I am experimenting with different exercises to soften and relax the neck muscles. But undoing 50 something years of damage will take a while.

This means that I have plenty of opportunities to learn to stop the migraine.

This week I started a new method.

Before, when I woke up with a migraine, I would stay in bed with a damp cloth over my forehead, breath deeply and imagine cleaning and relaxing of the muscles. This didn’t would work sometimes – not good enough!

This week I am experimenting with a totally different method.

Today for the second time I got out of bed after waking up with a migraine and started doing Yogasanas or exercises. I picked some suggestion from several sources:

• “Light on Yoga” B.K.S. Iyengar
• “Yoga Therapy for Headache Relief” Peter Van Houten and Richard K . McCord
• “Treat Your Own Neck” Robin McKenzie
• ChiGong Exercises I learnt years ago.

The first time was on Monday. I managed to keep the migraine on very low volume. I went to work. Finally in the evening the migraine was gone – no pill taken.

Let see what will happen today…

The two I found most helpful:

1. Head retraction as suggested by Robin McKenzie. I do it every day every few hours, mainly interrupting my sitting in front of the computer.
2. Alternate nostril Breathing – called by Iyengar Nadi Sodhana Pranayama.

Wish myself success with the new experiment.

Hana Galperin

Being my own therapist

IT IS NOT ABOUT SUCCESS OR FAILURE.

It is a long learning process.

Till now I avoided understanding my migraines. I thought all I need to do is find the right doctor or the right therapist or the right treatment method.

I would find a new SOLUTION, read about it, ask others about it, as if their problem was the same as mine. Then try it – sure it will solve the problem. I would try the new solution (treatment or pills) for many months, spend a lot of money and gradually after a year or so I would decide it is a waste of time, money and stop.

No one could say I didn’t try almost everything. No one could say I didn’t give all those different options a chance.

One thing I avoided – BEING MY OWN THERAPIST.

Now I am my own therapist.

I study the migraines. I look at each migraine as a new lesson. Sometimes I feel too lousy for that, but most of the times i do. Every now and then I understand a little bit more.

Most important, I feel I am in charge of what is happening to me.

I just realized that my neck muscles are so tight, there is a good chance I would press on them during a good night sleep and trigger a Migraine. On Friday after a week without migraines, feeling good and energetic I went to sleep happy and content and woke up at 4:00 in the morning with a well developed migraine.

So I have a mission to find the way to loosen up in general and specifically to loosen up my neck muscles.

In my library I found a very good book: “Threat Your Own Neck” written by Robin McKenzie. He explains very clearly what is going on in my neck and provides few exercises to help correct the situation. This coupled with Yoga is what I am doing now.

Always open to new suggestions, ideas.

Hana Galperin

Yoga coupled with strong detrmination

On the 30 of July was my birthday. Each year my group of friends since childhood celebrate the birthday of three of us in the north of Israel. Israel is very hot in the summer. The area near the Sea of Galilee is just like a furnace. In spite of the heat we headed up north.

Heat is the leading trigger of migraines in my case. I ended up suffering from Migraine each day of the weekend. I took two pills during that time and felt lousy – a great way to celebrate my birthday. A great way to learn not to ignore what I know and be more considering with me weakness.

Taking two pills in a row usually means a streak of migraines and the only way to stop it is to suffer through the migraine without medication. So I was ready to spend several days in bed with migraine. Sure enough on Sunday early morning (here in Israel the weekend is Friday & Saturday) I woke up with a migraine. I notified people at work that I won’t be coming to work and was well prepared to suffer. I was very determined not to take another pill.

Lying in bed, I started with deep breathing, cool cloth on my forehead, moving my head from side to side. I was wide awake, making sure I won’t fall asleep. To my surprise, it took less that an hour and the migraine was gone.

Again I realized that when I am very determined I can stop the migraine.

Since then I kept doing Yoga exercises each morning and before I go to sleep. I gradually become more and energetic. No migraine. How great this feels!

Medication overuse headache

Did you know that the medication we take to cope with our headaches may become the cause for more headaches.

I learnt it from experience. The first time was when the OTC medication couldn’t help anymore with the headache and just made me feel worse. At that point the Neurologist prescribed a Triptan medication. She said nothing about the effect of over using it. She just said don’t take more than 5 a month, it is too expensive.

Years later when I had migraines 1-2 days apart, she said you are addicted, you need to go through a weaning process. Since then I need to wean myself for the addiction to Triptan medication almost every year.

Looking in the web I found the following article:

Medication overuse headache: pathophysiological  insights

I am quoting from the abstract of this article:

Medication overuse headache (MOH) is a clinically important entity and it is now well documented that the regular use of acute symptomatic medication by people with migraine or tension type headache increases the risk of aggravation of the primary headache. MOH is one of the most common causes of chronic migraine–like syndrome. Because of easy availability and low expense, the greatest problem appears to be associated with barbiturate–containing combination analgesics and over–the–counter caffeine–containing combination analgesics. Even though triptan overuse headache is not encountered with great frequency, all triptans should be considered potential inducers of MOH. There are several different theories regarding the aetiology of MOH, including: (i) central sensitisation from repetitive activation of nociceptive pathways; (ii) a direct effect of the medication on the capacity of the brain to inhibit pain; (iii) a decrease in blood serotonin due to repetitive medication administration with alteration of serotonin receptors; (iv) cellular adaptation in the brain; and (v) changes in the periaqueductal grey matter. The principal approach to management of MOH is built around cessation of overused medication. Without discontinuation of the offending medication, improvement is almost impossible to attain. Thus, the best management advice is to raise awareness and strive for prevention.

For a more detailed explanation see:

Medication overuse Headache: When Meds Cause the Pain

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/429667

medication-overuse headache: similarities with drug addiction

Hana Galperin