Fasting and Eating for Health (12 page)

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Two Misunderstood Conditions

If you regularly suffer from headaches that make you feel as if your head were clamped in a vise, you are not alone. Headaches, including the migraine type, are so widespread that many people consider them a normal occurrence of human existence.

Headaches are our country's number one pain problem and are one of the most common reasons why patients visit physicians. The National Headache Foundation says 45 million Americans suffer from chronic recurring headaches.

A recent study has shown that migraine affects 17.6 percent of women and 5.7

percent of men in the United States.1

Headaches are a signal that something is wrong. Typically they result from retained toxins in the body. When these metabolic waste products are eliminated, people can regain their long-sought-after freedom from pain.

Most people suffer through their headache attacks using home remedies or over-the-counter medications (on which we spend more than $4 billion each year). When they finally consult a physician, further medication is thrust their way. It is exceedingly rare that the patient will be taught that lifestyle and diet choices have brought on this problem and that only the removal of these inciting causes can resolve the distress.

Typically, patients are encouraged to become drug dependent, forever popping pills or injecting themselves with drugs in an attempt to control their suffering. This Band-Aid approach will never restore such patients to normalcy.

It does not attempt to remove the cause.

Many pain syndromes of undetermined cause have similar biological mechanisms that lead us to feel discomfort. If you are suffering from any type of related pain, by understanding the concepts explained in this chapter you should be able to banish these symptoms from your life forever. The chronic headache patient and the migraine sufferer will be able to throw away their medications and join the ranks of those who rarely—if ever—experience such agony.

Retained Toxins Are the Major Cause of Headaches
The standard theory that tension headaches are caused by widening of the blood vessels and migraines are caused by constriction of the blood vessels has been disproven in recent investigations.2 The evidence now illustrates the 64

similarities between migraine and other types of headaches rather than the differences. The major cause of both tension headaches and migraines is the retention of toxins or tissue irritants within the central nervous system. These chemical irritants may cause an oversensitivity of nerve tissues to other stimuli.

It has also been shown that tissue waste, such as nitric oxide and other irritating chemicals, can be released from both the nerves and blood vessels in the central nervous system.3 These recent findings illustrate the biochemical players associated with detoxification in the central nervous system.

Withdrawal from toxins either taken orally or self-produced within the body is a form of detoxification. This merely means the body is actively engaged in an effort to lower the levels of waste retained in our cells. Sometimes this release of waste from cells can be painful; nevertheless, it has a positive benefit to the body. Our cells and the tissues they comprise must continually strive to maintain their purity to prevent early cellular degeneration and premature cell death.

One clue to understanding severe headaches is the fact that migraine sufferers are more sensitive to drugs including hallucinogenic agents than people who do not suffer from migraines.4 This suggests a difference between sufferers and nonsufferers in the blood—brain barrier, or the sensitivity of the brain's surrounding membranes to toxins.

The biochemical mediators causing the pain in so-called tension headache are actually closely related to the causative factors in migraine. Rather than saying that tension headaches and migraines are caused by differing mechanisms, it would be more accurate to see them on a pain and symptom continuum differing only in severity of symptoms and sensitivity of the individual to toxic stimuli and pain-modulation neurotransmitters. The additional symptoms in the migraine such as nausea, visual auras, and dizziness occur simply because the headache is more severe.

For more than 30 years, tension headaches were simplistically believed to be caused by muscle contraction. Now we believe that muscle tension is the response to the pain and not the cause of the headache. Similarly, in migraine, dilation and constriction of the blood vessels follow the onset of pain and do not cause it.

The tension type or muscle-contraction headache is generally less severe than a migraine. It is experienced when the individual is under stress, in contrast to the migraine, which is usually experienced after stressful periods have ended and the body attempts to repair and detoxify. We need not concern ourselves with the minute biochemical differences between migraine-type and so-called tension or muscle-contraction headaches because the biochemical mechanism causing the pain is similar for each, and the treatment described in this chapter is equally effective for both.

The pain of a migraine almost always occurs in the front of the head and is centered on an eye. It is typically accompanied by visual and gastrointestinal disturbances. Essentially, migraines are severe pulsating, or throbbing, 65

headaches, associated with nausea or photophobia.

Many factors may trigger or aggravate an attack of migraine. A common aggravating factor is physical activity. Other common precipitating factors include menstruation, alcohol consumption (especially red wine), too little or too much sleep, a missed meal, or a change in the weather. Certain foods can also trigger migraine in many patients (dietary recommendations will be discussed later).

“Cures” Are Not the Answer

The general medical viewpoint is that migraines cannot be cured, but merely suppressed with drugs. Physicians generally don't hesitate to prescribe medication for a person to take for the rest of his or her life. The common medical practice of giving drugs (which are all toxic) to treat the ill effects of retained toxins, without attempting to determine and remove causative factors, is a misguided approach illustrative of the overall inadequacy of today's health care system. Fortunately, I can take my patients off these drugs when they learn how to adopt healthful diets and lifestyle practices that are much more effective at preventing such attacks.

During the first pharmacology lecture I attended in medical school, the instructor admonished us never to forget that all drugs are toxic. Indeed, many of their effects on the body are obtained because these substances are toxins that interfere with or poison the body's natural activity. Besides contributing to the body's toxic overload and leading to overall deterioration in health, it is well recognized that the medications used to treat migraines are a crucially important factor in perpetuating future attacks. Drugs that are used for headaches—such as acetaminophen (Tylenol), barbiturates, codeine, and ergotamine—all cause headaches to recur on a rebound basis as these toxins begin to wash out of the nervous system. Then, in order to temporarily lessen the pain, headache sufferers take more of these tissue poisons, only to excite another attack in the near future, thus maintaining the patient on a drugging merry-go-round.

The use of medication, even in quantities as low as ten aspirin tablets per week, can be the cause of a chronic daily headache syndrome.5 The best thing a physician caring for headache patients can do is withdraw their medication.

One medical study found that stopping all treatments and pain medication actually decreased headache frequency and intensity in the subjects by more than 50 percent.6

Besides the typical toxic drugs that physicians routinely prescribe, toxins such as alcohol, lead, arsenic, morphine, carbon monoxide, pesticides, and noxious fumes can cause severe headaches.

Likewise, other unhealthy practices—drinking coffee and soft drinks, eating sweets and other nutritionless foods—contribute to the problem. Even drinking milk can add to our discomfort, as it frequently contains multiple antibiotics given to the cow.

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Most individuals in our modern society are dealing with the ingestion of drugs and other chemical toxins almost daily and are continually, and sometimes painfully, attempting to detoxify. Taking further poisons into the system to prevent the painful elimination of wastes merely perpetuates the problem and allows headaches to recur more frequently.

Just as we can ―cure‖ the coffee drinker's headache by giving him or her more coffee to stop the withdrawal or elimination of the retained toxins associated with caffeine consumption, so, too, can we ―cure‖ the heroin addict's withdrawal symptoms by giving him or her more heroin or by substituting methadone. We can ―cure‖ the headache or migraine sufferer's problems by giving him narcotics, or by prescribing Esgic, Ergostat, Bellergal, Cafergot, Excedrin, Fiorinal, Vanquish, or Wigaine, which contain either caffeine, ergotamine, or barbiturates.

These approaches, although widely employed and accepted, do not remove the cause and, in fact, perpetuate the problem they attempt to solve.

Prescribing such medications merely temporarily curtails symptoms of withdrawal, not much different from the pusher on the street corner, selling his wares to the addicts who must suffer pain should they not continue to take their narcotics. Headache patients should never be given opiates, barbiturates, or caffeine (which are found in many headache remedies) as these substances will always make the problem worse in the long run.

Many other medications also cause headaches, both the garden variety tension headache as well as migraines. These drugs include those used for angina and high blood pressure, as well as estrogen-containing birth control pills and estrogen hormone replacement therapy, often prescribed after menopause.

When migraine and tension headache patients are placed on low-protein, natural plant-based diets, with no refined sweets of any type, they almost all recover within a month, never needing medication or further treatments to control their condition.

What to Do and What Not to Do If You Are a Headache Sufferer
Most people mistake feeling good for health. But anything that quickly makes you feel good is likely to be harmful to your health. Often, in order to recover your health you may have to temporarily feel bad so your body can cleanse itself of an offensive substance. Cocaine may make a person temporarily feel better, but you would not argue that cocaine use is a healthful practice.

Anything that rapidly takes away symptoms of ill health or makes you feel stimulated is likely to be a health risk.
Superior health must be earned through
healthful living
. The road to optimal health through removal of cause may take a little longer, but the result you earn will be everlasting.

Drugs to relieve pain are rarely necessary if headache sufferers are allowed to fast and detoxify at the first sign of headache symptoms. Patients trying to 67

detoxify and eliminate dependency on medication often find it useful to retire to a dark room and use ice compresses or a tight ice wrap around the head to reduce pain. An alternative can be to stand in a hot shower with hot water beating on the painful area. In addition, biofeedback techniques such as progressive relaxation and self-hypnosis can often be helpful to these patients.

Commonly, though, such techniques are not needed because the headache sufferers have quickly eliminated their headaches through the nutritional approach described here. By the time biofeedback methods are learned, they are no longer necessary. If the person still suffers from headaches during the first week after the diet is changed, I find cold and pressure to be most effective and practical.

Many individuals with migraine can obtain effective relief by simply applying an elastic band around the head, securing it with Velcro, and inserting rubber discs for added local pressure over the areas of maximum pain. An investigational study utilizing a 2-inch elastic band approximately 25 inches long with Velcro at each end illustrated impressive results with this nondrug approach for relief. Firm rubber discs the thickness of a finger and a little over an inch in diameter were employed. Patients were instructed to place these discs under the elastic headband over the area of maximum pain. Almost every patient in the study reported benefit. Twenty-three patients used the band for a total of 69 headaches. Forty of the headaches were relieved by more than 80

percent and 15 headaches improved by more then 50 percent.7

One should be warned that when one is not continuing to ingest harmful food substances, the body will often use this opportunity to detoxify, and that may initiate another headache. This is the time when the patient must try to use physical modalities—such as cold compresses, seeking rest in a dark room, banding with Velcro, and biofeedback—and at all costs avoid the use of further medication. Employing such mechanical approaches and avoiding medication will enable the headache sufferer to avoid taking toxic drugs, which will interfere with the body's ability to manifest a complete recovery through nutritional intervention.

Headache can be exacerbated by not eating. The reason is that not eating triggers withdrawal symptoms as the body begins to detoxify and get rid of retained toxins. Remember: For a short time you must feel bad so that for a long time you can feel good.

Obviously, some headaches may result from brain tumors, meningitis, tuberculosis, hypertension, head injuries, and diseases of the eyes, nose, throat, teeth, and ears. Such conditions are rare, however. Allergic conditions and chronic sinusitis are also uncommon causes of headache. Persistent severe headaches that do not respond within a few days of fasting should always be further evaluated by a physician. The onset of a severe headache like one never experienced before, especially in an older person, should also be properly evaluated by a physician.

Eating Right Can Eliminate Migraines