Managing Migraine: a place to find the good stuff...also how, and why.
Frequently Asked Questions about Natural Migraine Relief for Women
Every once in a while, its useful to ask why we do any one thing. For instance, why do I write this blog, and why do you read it? We now live in an amazing age where you don’t have to rely on any other one person to get much of the general information we want. We just look it up. “There’s a you-tube video for that.” Right? Or maybe there’s a hundred you-tube videos for that. And most of them don’t quite apply to your situation. Many times I’ve had to watch at least four of them to find one that fit my needs. Pretty cool when you find it, though.
We have also learned that it’s rare to get all the pertinant facts from any one all-knowing, unbiased source. So we find ourselves on a journey, looking here and there for precise and personalized problem solving, presented with clarity, done quickly and oh BTW, while you’re at it, for free. Maybe the promise of AI will deliver all that and more, without bias or filter. We’ll see about that.
In the meantime, here are some rationales for my writing, and for your reading (from time to time) this Natural Migraine Relief column:
To help you see the medical aspects of migraine care from a less pharmaceutical perspective. If you look closely at most traditional print, network or social media posts (in reality = ads) about migraine, they often have advice linking to “a drug as the solution” conclusion. Not that drugs can’t be tremendously useful at times, but I’ve checked, and there is not a single health problem that is due to your having a deficit of a petrochemical based pharmaceutical.1 There’s something else going on. Let’s take a look at the “what else gets to the root of the problem” options you may want to consider.
It helps to have a guide who can take distant but related threads and connect them for you. My timeline in science and medicine reminds me of the insurance agency ad that says “We know a thing or two, because we've seen a thing or two.” My 40-year career includes a Master’s degree in Physiology and Immunology, Board Certification in Family Practice and Sports Medicine, 30 years of integrative clinical medicine work and 25 years (with over 2000 twelve-hour shifts) in Emergency Medicine. If you’re doing the math, these numbers are overlapping, not consecutive!
This journey has been ecletic enough to enable me to pass along some insights I would not have seen on any other path in healthcare. Some of them may be just what you need.
To understand that like many health problems, migraine headaches have different root causes for each of us. Managing some of these root causes can have conventional medical answers, while others are nearly untouched by traditional therapy options. These posts address both of these categories, with action considerations that will include options that your own doctor may endorse, ridicule or just shrug their shoulders about.
To encourage you to keep asking questions about how your body works, and what might be going awry, especially when an essential organ like the brain misbehaves. This blog creates an online space where you can encourage yourself to explore, even for just a few minutes a week, options that might just be one of those “right key in the lock” answers for your version of headache (or related problems.)
I’ll aim to drop a new post in your box about once a week. If you give it a read and it provokes an opinion or a question, please consider tagging it with a comment or a like ❤️. It helps me to know when I’m over the target, as I aim to address your concerns about the complicated topic of migraine relief.
I’d like to take credit for that line, but it belongs to Dr. Robert Rowen, one of integrative medicine’s pioneers and still a source of innovation and an example of medical integrity to all with a dram* of scientific curiosity. Click through to his free Substack at the link below:
*which is only one-eighth of an ounce, so that’s not asking so much…
Your posts are always right on target. I am learning that there is a whole different side of treating Migraine that I wasn’t aware of. That is because of you! Because until your blog posts, I rolled my eyes every time I heard the term “natural” in front of the word Migraine.
Yes, "natural" can mean almost anything and has been so oft misused as to make us immediately suspect a marketing angle. For me, it means looking at solutions that aren't just "pharmaceuticals first, foremost and always."