HEADACHES AND HORMONES

Alternative Treatments for Migraine

The herb feverfew is used for migraine prevention. It is certainly worth a try before going on prescription medications. Sometimes it is used together with magnesium and the vitamin riboflavin. However if your migraine has reached a crisis point in which you frequently have to leave work or have difficulty managing your children, you may want to start with the prescription treatments and later see if other measures will work.

Acupuncture is another avenue to look into but it is inconvenient so I see it as for people who have not responded to the simpler measures.

My experience suggests that meditation may be effective for migraine. I have had migraine since my early teens but almost none in the more than fifteen years during that I have been practicing meditation. Now when I feel that a headache is coming on, I can make a conscious change which seems to let the attack go away. However I did not get this benefit until I had been practicing for a while. The time to begin meditation practice is not in the midst of an attack!

I did not specifically try to use meditation for my headaches, I just realized I could stop the headache from coming on.

Meditation is a very good way to deal with migraine but keep in mind that it is a skill which takes time to develop. I am not sure it will always work with really bad hormonal migraine. However meditation has many health benefits so if you are interested I definitely recommend starting to practice on a regular basis. This is discussed under Meditation and Hormones.

Coffee and migraine

            Caffeine can stop or delay migraine. Unfortunately, as it wears off, the attack can come back and so caffeine tends to make migraine worse in the long run. Some heavy coffee drinkers get a migraine if they miss drinking their usual amount. If you have migraine and drink a lot of coffee, that may be part of the problem and decreasing your intake may be part of your treatment; this should be worked out as part of your individualized treatment plan with your physician. Decaf is OK.

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Migraine Headaches
Other Patterns of Headache
Hormonal Migraine
How Migraine is Treated
Alternative Treatments for Migraine
Conclusion

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