Migraines can be debilitating for so many. People continue to struggle and try different ways to make it better, but they’re just unable to do so. With that I want to begin talking about migraine headaches and specifically how they started with Kelly, my wife and nurse, many years ago. Like a lot of women, Kelly had suffered with migraines that centered around her menstrual cycle and for a few days out of the month she would be very sick.
Her migraines started at about 20 years old. A few days before her cycle she would get a headache and she could feel the migraine coming on. Once the headache started and progressed into a migraine, it would get so bad that she couldn’t do anything but lay in bed, with the lights off and feel sick/nauseated. Sometimes, she would be out 2-4 days of every month.
I looked up some statistics and found that: “Migraine headaches, alone, in the United States generate $1 billion (that’s billion with a “B”) in medical costs and migraines account for $16 billion in lost productivity”.
Migraines Can Be Debilitating.
Kelly had to take off work as a pediatric ICU nurse for 4 days per month and that didn’t just mean that she wasn’t able to go to work at the hospital, that meant that for 3-4 days at home we had a different dynamic in our household. It temporarily changed how we prepared meals, how we cared for our children and you can’t really put a dollar figure on a life disruption like this. These headaches affect so many people at such a staggering rate and unfortunately they’re just really poorly treated.
At the height of Kelly’s headaches, I was in residency in Pennsylvania and I got a phone call one evening from Kelly that she just can’t take it anymore, her head hurts too bad, she had been vomiting, and had been in a closed dark room for the last 48 hours. She was miserable. So, I did what I needed to do at the time, which was to bring her to the hospital. She was just given a cocktail of medications; much like many of you have or know someone who has. It’s just the commonality that happens when you end up going to the hospital, you’ll typically get a cocktail of Toradol and Benadryl, maybe a pain reliever or an anti-nausea medication like Zofran. That was the typical cocktail we would use in the emergency room. But for Kelly and I it actually got a little bit scarier at this point, we ended up going to get her a MRI.
When you have consistently bad headaches, like these, the underlying concern is that there could be a malignant brain tumor that is causing the headache. Which also led us into a concern of her having a diagnosis of MS (Multiple Sclerosis). For a period of weeks, we had to go see a couple neurologists and we were concerned that we were dealing with headaches that weren’t just related to her menstrual cycle, but we’re actually the cause of something bigger. I think we always need to look at the underlying issues and try to find them. It wasn’t until many years later, after still continuing to deal with this every month, that we were able to find a better solution. Now over the last several years, I have had great success in treating migraines from a different perspective.
Ozone & IV Vitamin Therapies for Migraines
I started to research what other therapies had been offered outside of the standard American medical treatment for migraines. I saw that there were multiple reports that using intravenous nutrient repletion, particularly, in the B Vitamin family had led to resolution or less frequency/severity of these headaches. Now let’s keep in mind that it is great if we can achieve the “C” word, cure, but unfortunately in medicine there are not too many guarantees. What we were able to do with Kelly’s headaches was Ozone Therapy and IV Vitamins.
I wouldn’t say that we “cured” her migraines, as Kelly says that after a few months they do come back but not as “grand” as they were once before, however once she is treated again they go away for several months. When we put this treatment together for the first time, it was that time that her headaches really went away and she had about 6 months of being headache-free. She was able to function without interruption for 6 months and wow what a difference it made for my family! I mean it was just groundbreaking for her because she no longer had to spend 3+ days of every month in bed. What a difference it makes for her because every month there was this sort of trepidation and anxiety that goes around the fact that you know this is going to, there’s really nothing you can do to stop it and guilt that you’re laying in bed while the rest of the family has to carry on without you. Prior she missed sporting events, parties, even Christmas like three and a half years ago.
Diet is Key for Helping Your Migraines
I dug up an article that was talking about preventive therapy of migraines and about dietary approaches to stop migraine headaches. What they found out was that once they enacted the diet that their headaches got better. I think people underplay the importance of diet. It makes a BIG difference in so many aspects of your life and yet it’s the most underplayed or underutilized treatment area where all of us can make a difference.
When we look at how all these treatments work we try to figure out how they are reducing the frequency and the severity of these headaches and diet has been shown to do that by restoring nutrient depletion and using nutrients to sort of correct and minimize the headaches. We have evaluated different approaches to diet at our house and I think that there was one that really helped and that was paleo. We realized that by strictly modifying our diet, she saw major improvements. Her sleep was better, she had less brain fog, her memory was better.
If you are suffering from migraines or you know someone who is then you need to give consideration to changing your diet moving it in a direction of a Paleo type dietary approach to clean out your system and allow for a more efficient functioning body. It’s going to make it much easier to get rid of these headaches.
Listen to Full Podcast HERE!
We’re dedicated to helping you. Call our clinic to find out more and book an appointment with us. We truly value you and thank you for entrusting us with your wellness!
