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Severe Migraines

farmb

Hi,

I am hoping that someone has experienced this or knows of someone/something that could help.

My mother has had severe migraines as long as she can remember. She generally tries to get through the day ignoring them but lately she just can't. She spends most of time in bed, unable to talk to anyone. Her quality of life is deteriorated because of it, and she gets very depressed because she feels "useless" and can't do much due to the situation.

She has tried everything from prescription drugs, dental orthotics (as it may be related to her jaw), Chinese medicine, homoeopathic remedies, acupuncture, reiki and many more.

She has been to countless consultants and gone for many scans and blood tests which haven't shown up anything.

Its killing me to see her like this, especially when I can do nothing. Does anyone know of anyone who may have gone through this before or have any advice?

Anything is much appreciated, I just want to help her.
Thanks

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g'em

OP just to note no medical advice can be given here but I'll leave this open in case anyone has any personal recommendations

avalon68

I've never had them that severe but I used to get maybe 2 or 3 a week at one time - like your mother, they suggested my jaw was at fault as its out of alignment or something......basically it was recommended to try surgery to correct it.....which I declined. Anyways, to make a long story short - i got one on holidays once before, and I realised I had eaten pork at breakfast....and not much else. So I decided to cut out all pork from my diet, and almost 7 years later I have only had about 2 migraines since. Sometimes if I feel that I might be getting one I use one of those handheld massage things on my neck to relieve tension. Back when I had a lot of migraines I used to find a cold compress on the back of my neck helped a lot too. Does your mom notice any trends with certain foods?

d'Oracle

My mother read a book called "The Migraine Revolution" By Doctor John Mansfield.

It basically consisted of a food elimination diet.
She still gets them now and again, but can usually pinpoint when she ate one of her trigger foods after, and nothing like she used to get.

If they are real migraines this approach MIGHT be worth looking at.

gymsoldier

Its red wine or coffee thats puts me in bed with the blinds closed. I feel a lot of migraines are set of by food/drink that does not agree with the person.

d'Oracle

gymsoldier wrote: »

Its red wine or coffee thats puts me in bed with the blinds closed. I feel a lot of migraines are set of by food/drink that does not agree with the person.

They are two of my mums triggers.

gymsoldier

d'Oracle wrote: »

They are two of my mums triggers.

Seems we're on to something here.

japanesebanana

That sucks. I get them but no where near that bad. When I was younger I went to a "nutritionist" who basically told me to eliminate certain foods, and it worked for a while. Now I go to a physio, my jaw and neck both give me a lot of pain which leads to headaches and migraines. I think posture and stress has a lot to do with it. Good luck to her

old hippy

My mother suffers, as did her brother and mother. I don't know if there is a cure as such. As you say, stress has a lot to do with it but it's easy to say "hey, don't get stressed" but how does one avoid stress... esp in this era we find ourselves in.

spdmrphy

Yeah, there's a good few triggers for migraines - obviously these won't be the same for everyone. Stress, bright lights, hunger, lack of sleep have been implicated. Not to mention all the food related triggers - alcohol, cheese, chocolate, caffeine.

Trigger avoidance would be a good place to start. It's a long enough process though, you generally have to eliminate food one at a time and see if it has any effect on migraine incidence.

Co-Q 10 supplementation has been shown effective in reducing duration, frequency and intensity of migraine by one study I know of (see "bandolier" for details: http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band161/b161-4.html)

This page in general has an abundance of info worth reading. http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/booths/migraine.html

The major problem with migraines is they are very poorly understood, alot of treatment plans can be very "trial and error" - one treatment might work great for one patient, but be useless in another.

If I can give your mum any advice, it would be to consult a specialist, and be wary of alternative medicines. (Edit: sorry, just re-read your post, I see your mum has already been in touch with consultants.)