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Migraines
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drink lemon juice and 1/2 tbsp. baking soda mixed in glass of water.
This will help balance the pH of your blood and flush out digestive wastes.
With a 2 p.m. headache or evening headache try to increase potassium-rich
foods such as various seaweeds (dulse, kelp), sunflower seeds, wheat germ,
almonds, raising, parsley, dates, yams, soybeans, garlic and spinach.
Take a teaspoon of honey in warm water each morning before eating.
Foods to avoid are:
- any food that causes a bad physical reaction, whether it be the migraine
itself, or fatigue, or indigestion. Try to pay attention to your food intolerances,
and ingest these culprit foods sparingly.
- spicy foods, alcohol, excess stimulation, coffee, caffeine, chocolate,
fried foods, stimulating foods.
Sometimes diet alone is not enough. This is where supplementation with
specific vitamins, minerals or amino acids may be necessary, at least at
first, to bring your metabolism into balance so that you reduce the possibility
for the onset of a migraine. Here is a list of supplements which may help
you; but please consult with a qualified nutritionist or naturopathic physician
first:
- Vitamin B-complex inejcted into the muscle (IM) every 2-10 days
- omega-3 fatty acids (e.g. raw flax or linseed oil, 1 T daily)
- omega-6 fatty acids, found in fish, and olive oil
- Vitamin B3 , 500 mg at the onset of the migraine
- Magnesium 400-800 mg daily, as a muscle and nerve relaxant
- Quercetin , a concentrated bioflavonoid which will help with vascular
tone so that the neck veins are less likely to become engorged with blood,
500 mg/day
How Can Homeopathy Help Migraines?
Homeopathy is a form of "energy" medicine, which like Traditional
Chinese Medicine uses substances to stimulate your own innate power to heal.
Homeopathic medicine is often touted as the "medicine of the 20th
century" by its proponents because it uses miniscule doses of plants,
minerals or animal parts to produce "remedies" with very little
resultant environmental damage. The following remedies may be considered:
- Aconitum napellus for a headache that is hard to describe; comes
with great violence: wild, tearing and burning in brain, scalp; with fear,
fever and anguish; fullness, throbbing in left forehead and strong beats
in right side by fits; skull feels constricted by the feeling of a band
around the forehead.
- Anthracinum for a headache that feels as if a hot, searing pain was
passing through head; for the migraine which creates dullness, confusion,
dizziness, or loss of consciousness.
- Apis mellifica for a migraine which is primarily localized in the
occiput, with occasional sharp shrieks; pains like bee-stings; no thirst,
easy sweating; this migraine is worse from heat and a warm room; better
in a cold room, in cold air, and with cold applications.
- Argent metallicum for the migraine that comes on at noon along with
other troubles; pressing, burning pain in skull; the pain gets gradually
more violent and then suddenly ceases.
- Argent nitricum for the migraine that includes an all-over ache and
fatigue; plus a feeling of expansion, as if the head were enormously enlarged;
the patient wants cold air, cold drinks, cold things; craves sweets; is
beset by strange notions and impulses.
- Arnica montana for burning in head, the patient feels as though the
brain were hot but the rest of body feels cool; a migraine with aching pains
over eyes, radiating to the temples; pain shoots through the head from coughing,
sneezing; or a migraine from injuries to the head, such as a concussion.
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A graduate of Bastyr University in Seattle, she completed both the Naturopathic and Acupuncture/Oriental Medicine programs. Her preceptor work (similar to residencies) took place in Seattle, West Virginia and China, 
