(no subject)

[serene]

Someone on a list I'm on had a migraine, and I offered to geek about how I got rid of mine.

I participated in a headache study for Kaiser, and these are the steps I took:

1) For two weeks, I wrote down every headache (and there were SO many more than I had thought -- I was having five to ten headaches a DAY; not that many migraines, but one a month or so) and took notes about what was happening -- had I just eaten dairy (to which I know I'm sensitive)? was I stressed out? etc. Also, they had me keep track of medications and caffeine (I don't do caffeine except on rare occasion.)

2) They made me/us cut out all caffeine and headache medication -- even aspirin -- for two weeks. Turns out most headaches are called "Rebound headaches" and are the result of your body reacting to having been on medication. My headaches went down by more than a half after that.

3) I cut out (or way down) the foods I noticed were abundant around headache time (from the journal they had me keep)-- for me, it was milk, chocolate, and really salty foods.

4) I started getting daily exercise.

5) I reacted *quickly* if I did get a headache -- they gave me some powerful migraine meds which I never ended up needing, but the *second* I feel a headache coming on, I take aspirin and/or caffeine, and it usually goes away in minutes.

I estimate that I've gotten maybe a headache a week since I did these things, and only one migraine this year. That's down from 50-60 headaches a week and a migraine a month, so I feel like I've effectively eliminated them. I hope some of this works for you.