Digestive Wellness: Strengthen the Immune System and Prevent Disease Through Healthy Digestion, Fourth Edition (143 page)

Make dietary changes.
Remove all sugars, alcohol, salty foods, refined carbohydrates, and caffeine. Try to figure out what works best for you personally. Simply avoiding caffeine can dramatically reduce the incidence and severity of migraines. Similarly, Dr. Gaby reported on a 1930 study on the effects of salt in migraine incidence. Twelve people avoided all salted snack foods before meals. At a six-month follow-up, migraines resolved completely in three people, and seven more had fewer attacks. Another study found that a low-fat diet of less than 20 grams daily lowered the incidence of headache from nine each month to three each month. Headache intensity and the need for medications also dropped substantially. This information shows the importance of the diet and the quality of fats. In combination with good-quality omega-3 fatty acids, this could give great results for many people.

Examine effects of caffeine.
Caffeine plays a mixed role in migraines. For some people, it significantly reduces the number and severity of headaches; for others it triggers them. Find out what works for you.

Be sure to eat often.
Low blood sugar levels often trigger migraines, so don’t skip meals. You may find that eating five to six small meals each day works better for you than three main meals.

Try an elimination diet.
This may be the most significant thing you can do to discover what is triggering your migraines. Avoid foods you are sensitive to.

Make your home environmentally safe.
Use only natural cleaning supplies, remove gas appliances, clean out mold and mildew, use a dehumidifier, and make your bedroom into a safe harbor by removing unnecessary items, such as carpeting and drapery.

Avoid monosodium glutamate (MSG).
MSG can provoke migraine headaches, asthma, diarrhea, vomiting, and gastric symptoms. These problems can occur immediately after eating or may be delayed up to 72 hours, which makes their relationship to MSG more difficult to discover. Food product labels may be misleading, with MSG labeled as “natural coloring”; some hydrolyzed vegetable protein contains MSG. You can challenge yourself with MSG to see if it brings on a migraine. The Elisa/Act blood test includes tests for MSG and glutamate sensitivity.

Begin with a multivitamin and mineral supplement.
Since so many nutrients have been demonstrated to help with migraine prevention, taking four to nine pills a day of multiple vitamin and mineral supplements may be a simple way to approach this with broad nutritional support.

Take magnesium.
Try 400 to 2,000 mg magnesium glycinate, ascorbate, ketoglutarate, malate, or other well-absorbed magnesium daily for at least three months. When you’ve reached saturation, you’ll get diarrhea. I use this with my clients to figure out the correct dose. If you need more than 1,000 mg daily before your stools loosen, add 1 teaspoon choline citrate to facilitate the magnesium absorption.

Use riboflavin (vitamin B
₂
).
Studies used 400 mg daily. You may have good results on less. There have been reports of benefit using between 15 and 30 mg daily.

Take vitamin B
₁₂
.
Take 1,000 mcg B
₁₂
nasally or sublingually. Use for at least three months to see the best effect.

Try niacin.
David Velling and colleagues report on a woman who began taking niacin to help lower cholesterol. Her migraines stopped for a month at 375 mg of sustained release niacin twice daily. When she reduced the dosage, she had two migraines the following month. There are reports of physicians using niacin intravenously during a migraine to decrease the severity and duration of headaches. The dose contains at least 100 mg niacin, which is infused slowly.