Thursday, September 10, 2009

Migraines

There are many preventive drugs for migraine headaches -- calcium channel blockers, beta-blockers, anti-seizure medications, and antidepressants. These all work poorly, if at all, and are often accompanied by frequent side effects. Attempts at providing relief for migraine headaches has gone as far as injecting Botox into the neck muscles to ease the patient’s symptoms.

Recently, new medications have been developed that can stop a migraine after it has started. These are part of a new class of drugs called triptans. They include Imitrex, Maxalt, and Zomig. While these new drugs do work much better, they have potential side effects which include strokes. They are also incredibly expensive and very addictive.

The challenge with migraines is that they are treated by doctors more as a cause than a symptom. Migraines can be caused by a number of dysfunctions in our bodies which include: food allergy/bowel and gut imbalances, chemical triggers, hormonal imbalances, magnesium deficiency, mitochondrial imbalances, structural problems

Often patients have migraines following a recent car accident, but often it is not this clear cut. For instance, if you have a chronic migraine associated with tight, irritable, crampy symptoms, this may point toward a nutritional deficiency in magnesium. If your migraine is associated with your period, along with severe PMS, bloating, sugar cravings, breast tenderness, and irritability your migraine might be due to hormone imbalances such as an imbalance in estrogen and progesterone.

In other words, migraines are a huge problem but are also very preventable. The answer is taking the time to investigate, not simply applying a medication or short chiropractic adjustment that may only work to successfully mask the symptom.

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