Treatments

12 May 2006

Is Melatonin a help?

The current issue of TIME Magazine has an article titled Sleep All Day! all about Melatonin, by Sora Song. Apparently, recent studies have shown that melatonin is of dubious benefit at night, but of more benefit during the day.

In other words, if you want to sleep during the day, melatonin may help. The reason is that melatonin is naturally released by your body at night, so the extra doesn’t seem to help. During the day, however, your body doesn’t create the melatonin, so the supplement helped.

Now I’ve mentioned here before that melatonin may be helpful for migraineurs. Now the evidence really is slim on melatonin in general, but before you give up on the idea, consider this. If you suffer from migraine, your body may not be producing melatonin normally in the first place. That’s because melatonin is part of the serotonin chain reaction, and serotonin levels have long been linked to migraine.

If it only helps you sleep better, you may find it’s worth it. Getting a good 8 hours’ sleep, with some before midnight, is going to help you cope better and will probably improve your migraine situation. It’s unclear if there are other reasons why melatonin helps the migraine sufferer. You might even consider trying it temporarily if it seems your migraine attacks have spun out of control. Be sure to check with your doctor. Melatonin has also been studied as a help to tension and cluster headache patients.

It also seems that a little melatonin is all you need. The study mentioned in TIME said that 0.3mg was as good as 5mg. The migraine study used 3mg, and it’s often sold in 3mg tablets. I’ve recommended Nature’s Bounty Melatonin, but Natrol Melatonin is also very highly rated. It’s becoming more available locally, just be sure to chose a brand you trust.

17 April 2006

Herbal and botanical treatments

James Treatments 0

Chamomile flowers
There are lots of things you can do with herbals (usually leaves) and botanicals (various parts of the plant). I mean, besides drinking or eating them. I’ve written about some of these before, but I found it interesting when I was reading Migraine and other Headaches that Drs Young and Silberstein list some different uses for different herbs. Here are the ones they list as the most commonly used therapies in this class:

Inhalation using melissa, peppermint and chamomile.

Massage with lavender, peppermint, anise, basil and eucalyptus.

Warm baths with eucalyptus, wintergreen, and peppermint.

Compresses of peppermint, ginger and marjoram, and vinegar.

They also mention herbal footbaths. According to this section of the book, these things are great not only for treating pain, but for relaxing and balancing the body. I’ve found treatments like these helpful, although some of these I wasn’t familiar with – I’ll have to check some more out!

21 March 2006

Hole in heart – disappointing trial

James Discoveries & Stats, Treatments 0

The most recent trial to see if a surgical procedure could help migraine sufferers was…not quite the success that was hoped for. Sort of.

The fact is that the hole in the heart closure, called the PFO closure procedure, so far hasn’t turned out to be the migraine cure-all. The surgery did seem to decrease the "migraine load" on patients by 37% (migraine load refers to number of hours with headaches multiplied by number of headaches). That’s great – except that other preventative treatments can do just as well or better. So the question is, who’s going to want to go under the knife when they can get help without the surgery?

There are some good points, though. First, maybe this will help someone that hasn’t been helped by anything else. Second, more trials are needed. There is something here that is helping us better understand where migraine comes from. It may be that future trials will give more clues and better results. It may be that certain types of migraine are affected more than others.

For more on the trial, check out the official NMT Medical’s MIST Study press release [link no longer available].

18 March 2006

Botox and more headache related issues

James Resources, Treatments 1

I have to say one thing for the Mayo Clinic‘s newsletter, HealthQuest. They know how to write about things that people want to read. No, I don’t get paid to promote the newsletter. But I have noticed that they write about headache and migraine very often. Why? Because it’s something so many of us are dealing with!

Actually, this time it’s a related topic I want to draw to your attention. It’s related to the use of Botox. Now many of you know that Botox is being used to treat migraine, in more than one way. But Botox is also being used indirectly to treat headache. How? By treating things like neck muscle pain, muscle spasm, and even teeth grinding (bruxism).

Botox is not the treatment you should try first – generally it’s recommended when other treatments have failed. Some migraineurs even use a combination of Botox and surgery – definitely closer to the "last resort" end of the scale.

Have you tried Botox for a headache related problem? Tell us how it went!

18 February 2006

Indian Head Massage (Champissage)

James Treatments 3

It’s all the rage in the UK, and it may even be in your city in Canada or the USA. It claims to help with anything from headache to hair loss, and it only takes 20 minutes out of your day. What is it? It’s Indian Head Massage, otherwise known as Champissage.

There are a number of slightly different treatments that go under the name of Indian Head Massage. But, in the 1970s massage therapist Narendra Mehta from Bombay India formalized the treatment while working in London. Champi means simply “head massage”, but the head massage is combined with massage of the shoulders and back. In its simplest form, however, the Indian Head Massage can just involve the head and not even any oil (although it’s recommended), making it very un-invasive and easy to do over a lunch hour.

Mr. Mehta’s version of the head massage is tied to the Hindu belief in energy centres in the body. Those of us who don’t accept the Hindu belief system may have trouble with a treatment based on these concepts. However, head massage itself is a helpful technique, based as well on simply the power of touch and the same muscle-relaxing techniques of any massage.

For those who easily get tense around the head, jaw and face, and who prefer a quick, less invasive massage, a basic head massage may be something to try.