Posts Tagged migrain
Diet For Migraine
If eliminating migraine triggers doesn’t work, what can you do instead of drugs? Both men and women who suffer migraine are typically deficient in magnesium. An imbalance between magnesium and calcium is an important factor in premenstrual migraine. Intravenous magnesium often produces complete symptom relief during acute migraines, usually within 15 minutes or less, although it is more useful for migraine sufferers who experience an aura before the onset of headache. Taking magnesium supplements (preferably a calcium-magnesium tablet) will help, as will eating magnesium-rich foods.
The best foods for magnesium include amaranth greens (yin tsai), avocados, barley, buckwheat, pumpkin seeds, and oysters. Almonds, Brazil nuts, and chocolate are also good sources of magnesium, but they are also common migraine triggers, so chances are you should avoid them.
A clinical trial found that taking large doses of the B-vitamin riboflavin for two months led to at least a 50 percent reduction in the number of attacks in 59 percent of people taking it. Riboflavin may be especially helpful for women who take birth control pills and for both men and women on cholesterol-lowering medications. Good food sources of riboflavin include avocados, clams, duck, lamb, most mushrooms, pork, whole milk, and yogurt.
It’s also important to avoid the “wrong” foods. Excessive intake of foods containing the amino acid tyramine can set off migraine attacks. Try avoiding foods containing tyramine, including anchovies, beer, hard cheeses, chocolate, corned beef, dried meats, fava beans, fermented beans such as miso and soy sauce, lima beans, pickled herring, red wine, sardines, sauerkraut, and brewer’s yeast.
Tags: balance, calcium, cholesterol, clinic, drugs, foods, headache, magnesium, magnesium supplement, magnesium supplements, menstrual migraine, migrain, migraine, migraine attacks, migraine suffer, migraine sufferers, migraine trigger, migraines, taking magnesium, vitaminRelated posts
Basilar Migraine – Not Just Another Migraine
Basilar migraine or basilar artery migraine as it is sometimes called, is one of those atypical headaches that can have frightening symptoms. This pain is unlike usual migraines. The pain is usually severe, throbbing at localized at the back of the head. It may be accompanied by severe vertigo (the sense that the room is spinning), difficulty walking and most commonly, visual disturbances.
Now what is meant by visual disturbances? Well, just about anything from blurry vision to blindness. This is caused by the fact that the basilar artery, where the problem is happening, is located in the back of the head. This artery feeds blood and oxygen to the back of the brain where the visual centers are located..if you have a problem in that area it definitely affects your vision.
Other common migraine headache symptoms may also occur such as nausea, vomiting and having the light and sounds bother you. Rarer symptoms are jerking movements of the eyes, ringing in the ears and loss of consciousness. Severe vertigo is quite common and can be disabling.
Why Is This Serious? A basilar migraine can increase the risk of stroke. Although a neurovascular condition like all other migraines, one of the problems is that aneurysms (an out-pouching of the artery) may occur in this area.
If caught, aneurysms are generally followed with more imaging such as a CT angiogram which gets a much better look at it. Surgery is recommended to “clip” it when it gets to a certain size. For cerebral aneurysms the limit is usually 10mm although some surgeons have told me they will do the procedure on a smaller one if the patient has neurological symptoms.
Testing For Basilar Migraine If you present to a doctor with the symptoms of basilar migraine, unfortunately since it mimics a stroke so closely, be prepared for a bit of a full work up to rule out stroke. This most probably will include an MRI or CT of the brain right away and possibly an MRA to look at the arteries of the brain. Again this would not only find a stroke but also find an aneurysm. A full examination including some testing for vertigo and hearing (if necessary) should be performed.
If the doctor is suspicious about possible seizures (they sometimes present with vertigo and headache) then an EEG is necessary. This is just a study to look at the electrical waves in the brain and involves wearing some scalp electrodes and getting your hair messed up!
Treatment Once a stroke has been ruled out, treatment is pretty straight forward. If the headache is disabling and occurs a couple of times a month, then you need to be on daily therapy for awhile, perhaps a few months to a year.
While many preventative medications for migraine are familiar to most headache sufferers, the drug of choice for this type of headache is verapamil taken once or twice a day. If you cannot take this medication, a beta-blocker such as Inderal is a good choice also.
If an attack does occur, most people can manage it well with a small dose of a pain killer. Many people also wonder why they cannot take their usual medications for migraine but unfortunately, all triptans such as Imitrex, are contra-indicated for this.
Tags: aging, angiogram, basilar artery, basilar artery migraine, basilar migraine, brain, headache, headache symptoms, headaches, imitrex, migrain, migraine, migraine headache, migraine headache symptoms, migraines, stroke, surgery, testing, treatmentRelated posts
An Introduction To Migraine Headache
Headache is one common problem that everyone faces. Like other sicknesses, even headache has its genres depending upon nature and causes of headache. Headache could be the side effect of some diseases or it may trigger because of constant stress that you may have been facing in your life. Although, most types of headache could be effectively cured but one genre of headache is yet to be offered a permanent cure. Yes! I am talking about migraine pain that is still shrouded with mystery.
Medical science is yet to ascertain exact causes of migraine headache. In most of the cases migraine pain disappears suddenly after troubling you for quite some time. But it may worsen a person’s condition if it is a recurring one. It happens when you are afflicted with classic migraine pain.
In rare cases, the pain is termed as Status Migrainosus. This migraine pain persists till you undergo severe medication and take sufficient rest. This type of migraine completely disrupts your schedule. You are needed to take a break and relax for a couple of days. However, majority of folks suffer from common migraine pain which makes you fall on the bed. You are resilient enough to quickly come back to your routine after a common migraine.
Seeing the gravity of migraine pain, you are not recommended to use over the counter pain killers to subside your pain.
Most of the medical researchers claim that migraine pain could be due to variation in serotonin level. Serotonin is a brain chemical that is said to have its effect on blood vessels going to brain. Blood vessels keep swelling and shrinking due to varying level of serotonin. This variation beyond the normal range results in to migraine. But, factual evidences have not yet proved the perfection of this medical theory regarding migraine.
It’s not necessary that only adults might suffer from migraine, even a child could suffer from migraine if he/she remains in stressful situations. Children afflicted with migraine must not be allowed to use non-prescription pain killers. Such children are suggested to perform breathing exercises and other relaxation exercises.
If you are facing a recurring migraine pain, you must also keep track of the frequency of recurrence. It happens to be of great help for doctors in suggesting medication by ascertaining the gravity level of migraine.
Tags: blood vessel, blood vessels, brain, causes of headache, causes of migraine, causes of migraine headache, classic migraine, exercise, exercises, headache, level, migrain, migraine, migraine headache, migraine pain, serotonin, stressRelated posts
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