possible migraine stopper

[onewheeldave]

Hope you’ll excuse the lack of unicycle content in this thread, but I’m sure that a small proportion of people in this community suffer from aura migraines; I’m posting this on several of the forums that I’m a regular on.

I’m proposing that if you do get aura migraines and try out this idea, that you add this thread to your favourites so, in months to come, you can find it easily and post your results, good or bad.

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There are two types of migraine, they used to be called ‘classical’ and ‘common’.

The type I have suffered from, and which this thread is about, are the ‘classical’ variety.

Also known as ‘aura’ migraines due to the (usually) visual disturbances that preceed an attack.

In my case a small patch which, over a 20-30 minute period expands into a void encircled by jagged, pulsating lights, which, by the end generally take up over half of the visual field.

Initially very scary, but, once you realise it’s just a normal precedent to a migraine, you get used to it.

The headache that follows can be horiffic- as a child it inevitably developed soon after the aura finished, and almost always involved a full day of really bad head pains and waves of nausea, relieved for a few minutes by vomiting, at which point the cycle would restart.

Growing older I found ways to help, doing several things and never being entirely sure which were actually helping, and by how much.

But, by doing them, I found that after the aura, the pain would be lesser, and vomiting rare.

One of those things was to follow the advice of Oliver Sacks, from his book on migraines, which is to drink a strong cup of tea and lie down in a dark room.

The idea being that, in a migraine attack, the arteries in the brain dilate (can’t remember if that means expand or contract), and caffiene causes the opposite (hence the tea).

However, in some situations it’s impractical to get a strong cup of tea- explaining to a cafe waitress why you want a cup of tea that’s only half full and made from 3-4 heavily squeezed tea bags, whilst half blind from a migraine aura, can be difficult

Also, I was never quite sure if it was the tea or the other things that helped.

So, for the past few years I’ve had, roughly every 1 - 3 months, auras that generally led to a bearable headache, but, on rarer occasions, led to the really brutal type I had as a child.

After having a really bad one a few months back I decided to again put some serious effort into addressing the problem.

This involved keeping a log of incidences and circumstances that surround them, as well as internet research into the caffiene connection.

As that harsh one occured on a time when I had no access to tea, I decided to investigate other usable forms of caffeine.

From then on I ensured that, at all times, I had caffiene tablets in my wallet. Specifically, ‘Pro Plus’ each tablet containing 50 mg of caffeine.

Two months back I had a auro whilst in town, and immediately took 4 tablets. The ensuing headache was very mild- if it hadn’t been preceeded by an aura I wouldn’t even have considered it a migraine.

Today, having gone to the cinema to see ‘Layer Cake’, I was despondent to experience a migraine aura. Being in a cinema with an hours bus ride to get home is no place to be experiencing a bad migraine headache.

However I took three tablets and this time there was no headache whatsoever- just a slight woozyness.

I can’t come to solid conclusions from just a couple of instances, but the extremely mild nature of the headaches on those occasions makes me feel optimistic about it.

Certainly, to anyone who suffers from aura migraines, I think it’s well worth carrying some caffiene tablets around and taking them as soon as an aura occurs.

And, whether they help or not, it would be great if sufferers post the results here as it will help to establish if it works (being practical, if you suffer from aura migraines and are going to try this, then add this page of the thread to your ‘favourites’ list, otherwise you’re unlikely to find it in a months time when you’ve got something to post).

I don’t need to say to anyone who suffers full on migraines how useful this would be if it turns out to be true.

Lastly, I should point out that caffiene is a drug, that, according to the packet instructions you shouldn’t take more than two 50 mg tablets in any given hour.

Also, don’t take them for purposes other than migraine stopping- there are theories that caffiene is not only a way of relieving migraines, but that it is actually the cause, via caffiene withdrawal, so the last thing you need is a regular caffeine tablet habit.

[One_on_one]

Migraines. What worked for me.

I have also suffered from migraines in the past. I worked in a photo lab for about 10 years. During the last few years there I started to develop (pun intended) migraines. The first ones were quite scary, with the flashing lights and impaired vision. Having recently read about TIA’s in Reader’s Digest. I thought that I was having a mini stroke.

I finally went to the doctor and after having tests to rule out other scary things, I was told that I was suffering from migraines.

My doctor prescribed Migratine and 600MG Ibuprophen. I was to take one of each at the onset of symptoms. This medication worked terrific for me. It stopped the migraine within a few minutes.

I have been out of the photo lab business for many years now and my migraines are few and far between. They are usually controlled with just Ibuprophen. I haven’t had the Migratine prescription for a long time.

The only ill effects that I have now, is if I am in a photolab for just a short tim, eg. dropping off film for developing, I will sometimes get a migraine in a very short time.

If you haven’t tried Migratine, I highly recommend it. It isn’t a very expensive prescription.

[Klaas_Bil]

Until about 10 years ago, I drank coffee every day. In most cases: morning, afternoon AND evening. There was one problem: I noticed that if I didn’t drink coffee within about 6 hours before getting to sleep, I stood a big chance of having a headache the next day. Not migraine with an aura, vomiting etc, but just a normal headache. So I adopted the custom that when I had been somewhere where I’d gotten no coffee, I drank coffee before going to bed. Indeed it prevented the next-day headache. And I had no sleep problems at all.

However, that procedure, I decided one day, was crazy. I had also read about the headache actually being a withdrawal symptom, much like what onewheeldave wrote. That knowledge added to my decision to stop drinking coffee altogether, and all at once.

I picked an X-mas holiday, because then it would be less of a problem if I would become ill. And ill I became! A terrible headache, I could only lie still in bed for a day and a half. My wife almost begged me to start drinking coffee again, because medical help was not easy to get because of the holiday and she didn’t know where it would stop. Nor did I, but I continued my coffee abstinence. After 1.5 day the worst was over and after about 5 days I was my normal self again.

Now I drink quite some decafeinated coffee (it still contains about 5 - 8% of the cafeine of normal coffee but my body doesn’t seem to notice) without problem. Occasionally I drink normal coffee, mainly for three reasons:

1. If I need a turbo boost. If one drinks coffee all the time,one is on the turbo booster all the time but the effect weans off. If you only drink coffee occasionally, you peak really higher than you could otherwise. I could recommend doing away with coffee for this reason alone!
2. If nothing else is available and I need something to drink (often the need is only social).
3. Importantly in this context: If I feel a headache coming. Not all headaches can be fought with cafeine, but most can. I think I can distinguish beforehand if it is the type that goes away with cafeine, and it usually works.

When I was a kid, my mother used to suffer from severe and rather frequent migraine attacks. She now has it largely under control, mostly by avoiding certain foods, such as sodium glutamate. Even if I am not a ‘proper’ migraine sufferer, my typical form of headache may be (genetically?) related to it, in the dilatation (that’s widening, BTW) of the arteries in the head.

Since I stopped drinking cafeine, I suffer much less headaches. A notable exception is a mild headache that usually occurs between 12 and 24 hours after cafeine consumption. It would go away with drinking another cup of coffee, but that would put me on a slippery ‘addiction’ slope.

One more observation: 50 mg of cafeine (as in the tablets that onewheeldave uses) is not very much. European style coffee (that’s stronger than American style) contains about 75 mg of cafeine per 100 ml. A usual European serving is 125 - 150 ml, and you can easily drink 6 of those per day. Regular tea, not being herb tea, contains less (20 - 35 mg per 100 ml), Coca Cola still less (14 mg / 100 ml) - but of the latter, the serving size is usually larger. Pure chocolate contains about as much cafeine as coffee (mg per gram) but the serving size is usually much less.

Klaas Bil