Seeking relief from chronic migraines

I assume you are already keeping a migraine log of incidents. Doing this helped me become more aware that my triggers include barometric pressure (weird) so I am more mentally prepared and able to jump on the preventative med I also have from Kaiser.

Hello! This is a long shot, but- I work in the dental field and have seen a handful of patients find varying levels of relief from migraines after starting to wear a night guard. If you don’t wear a night guard already, it may be worth looking into with your dentist. Some people clench more than grind and may not show evidence of wear on their teeth, and may not have heard complaints from partner about grinding. Good luck, migraines are miserable. 

I used to get awful migraines--started when I was 9 years old.  They'd stop for a month, even a whole year & then return. The last 3 years of my migraine history were tough.   But now maybe once every 4-6 months do I get a migraine, usually they're manageable, no medication required, not even advil, etc.   Learning about (& then responding to) the needs of my digestive system, aka "gut health"-- lots of free info online-- definitely I needed more fiber in my diet...yet I also have learned other things about my gut.   Learning what are some of my migraine-triggering foods-- and then eliminating them from my diet- helped. Check out youtube, there are some helpful suggestions (i.e. one suggestion is to stop using Canola oil, corn oil, etc. --any oil based on linoleic acid) Getting checked for allergies & then undergoing the series of injections helped.  Unfortunately, I did acupuncture for a year--without any important lessening of my migraines, but reportedly, acupuncture can help. Massages also help. Also, have you considered talking with a homepathic doctor?  I zoom with Gina Inez, in Marin...she has truly been the most helpful health practitioner in my migraine life!  She has quite a waiting list--but DEFINITELY, at least for me, worth the wait. --- Sure hope that soon you feel less oppressed by migraines.  

My friend’s migraine situation improved dramatically when she changed her diet. I’m not sure details but alcohol and processed foods for sure she quit, possibly also gluten and she cut way way back on sugar. I know she thought of cutting out nightshades too but I don’t think she ended up doing that? It wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be and it made a big difference. Maybe research dietary approaches if you haven’t already? Wishing you the best, migraines are a terrible thing to live with!

I'm so sorry you are suffering. I, too, had chronic migraines. After years of testing with no results or help, I finally connected it to eating certain foods. I now avoid all artificial sugars and processed foods and have been migraine-free for years! I encourage you to do a two or three week trial using no pre-prepared foods including beverages, pre-made sauces/seasonings, artificial sugars/sweeteners, dyes, processed foods/meats, etc. Keep a food journal and limit your diet to only whole, organic proteins and fruits/vegetables. Hoping this works for you, too!

So sorry to hear you are struggling and suffering from migraines. I had my first migraine when I was in kindergarten and they peaked at their worst when I was in my late 20s. I’m going on ten years of averaging 1 migraine every 6 months or so vs. the 1-3 a month I was previously getting. 
 

As for acupuncture, I find that I have relief while at the appointment but the effects wear off quickly after I’m home. That was booking/attending an appointment while I had a migraine. A set of appointments to manage the migraines might be worth taking a look at. I could see weekly visits really helping to manage them. Additionally, my acupuncturist suggested Chinese herbs that I took for about a year that really seemed to help. They were a pill form that helped with stagnation amongst other things. 10 out of 10 recommend. 
 

The other thing I noticed to really help is cutting out sugar and processed foods. I went through a period where I was addicted to Diet Coke, relying on processed or prepackaged foods to get by, and eating an insane amount of sugar. I decided to cut as much of those things out as I could. I felt worse for about two weeks then I felt like a new human. I eat sweets from time to time now and indulge in processed treats from time to time but mostly stick to eating things from the outside aisles at the store. It’s made a huge difference.

Lastly, exercise. I don’t get nearly as much as I used to with two kids BUT when I decided to make a change to see if I could get my migraines under control this was one thing I saw an immediate change with. Getting 30 minutes to an hour of exercise, if done everyday, really helped keep my migraines at bay. My acupuncturist said that tracked, that it was helping with the stagnation within my body.   
 

Overall I’ve never had success with prescriptions for my migraines. They either worked to fix the headache then I felt like a zombie for 24 hrs or so OR they worked for about an hour then my headache got worse. If you need a recommendation for an acupuncturist there are two in the Bay Area that I love. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. Good luck and I hope you find relief soon!

I used to get them weekly, even with taking propranolol daily as a preventative.  Last year my primary care doc told me that the UCSF migraine center recommended 400mgs of B2 daily plus an omega 3 supplement.  I started that and now I get them less than monthly.  It's been a game changer for me, startlingly so.  I have found it is important for me to be completely consistent with it and I take the supplements with me when I am out of town, etc.  I don't know that this works for everyone, but evidently there are possible connections between B2 deficiencies and migraine.  Good luck. 

Hello! I had some success with accupuncture and Botox ended up being quite helpful. There’s also a new class of medications out that are apparently quite effective with minimal side effects called CGRP inhibitors- I’ve yet to try them. Good luck! 

I have a friend who has suffered debilitating migraine for years. At this point she's taking monthly injections of a preventative medication, which has been life-changing for her.  I'm not sure what medication she's on, but a web-search brought up four that fit the description: Aimovig, Vypeti, Ajovy, and Emgality. (I think she's using Emgality.)

Before the injectable became an option, she got a lot of relief from CBD oil.  She also followed the advice in Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Headaches by David Buchholz, which also helped a lot but entails, for her, a lot of restrictions, particularly dietary ones.  With the injectable, she's been able relax a bit on the restrictions.

One thing she's found is that with very frequent migraine, a lot of meds that reduce symptoms have rebound effects.  That is, relief today means a worse headache in the very near future.  Buchholz's approach entails identifying migraine triggers and reducing exposure to them.

I'm going to be honest, no alternative treatment ever worked for me and I tried many of them. Like another poster answered, you are really going to need to keep a headache diary. Things you should track - for at least a couple of months - are your daily pain levels, ALL food intake, sleep quality, exercise, your menstrual cycle days and whether you did or didn't take any meds. I used a spreadsheet for years for this. Depending on the severity of the pain, you will absolutely forget if you took excedrin twice this week or 4 times this week. It all blends together and a written update is easier. Most doctors/neurologists will expect you have been doing this.

There are common triggers and less common triggers and you need a diary to help figure this out. For me, dried fruits, cheeses, chocolate were nearly a guarantee for a migraine (those are common triggers), but what I came to learn is that I was highly sensitive to soy (all forms of the bean, the oil, and to a lesser extent soy lecithin which doctors said no way, but it did). Soy is in so many things, your head will spin.  Guaranteed migraine in 30 minutes.

There is also such a thing as a rebound headache which happens if you take too many pain meds in a short period of time and then stop them. You have to switch things up.

Turned out mine were multi-triggered - including hormonal - and the menopause transition knocked them mostly out.

But I doubt an alternative treatment will work if you don't do the legwork ahead of time and remove as many triggers as possible.  At best an alternative treatment will work to ease a single trigger, but if there are layers there, it won't help.

FYI, for pain meds, the fancy ones you see advertised now with Serena Williams, are not first line meds. At least not with Kaiser - they have rules about trying and failing at least 3 other meds first before they'll cover that one. Too many hoops to jump thru for me!

I've been there! My migraines got to the point where I ended up in a dark, quiet room for several days a month—truly debilitating.

Eventually I was able to identify that my migraines were triggered by chronic sinus congestion due to allergies and exacerbated by stress. My doctor prescribed sumatriptan, but I did not tolerate it well and I learned that it can affect the heart. I changed doctors. The new doctor suggested I take an over-the-counter Excedrin Migraine at the first indication of onset, while getting the congestion and stress under control. The alternative treatments that work for me are a net-pot, herbal remedy, reduced allergen exposures, and acupuncture for the congestion and yoga, meditation, and lifestyle changes for the stress. The acupuncture did an amazing job at draining my sinuses, although I originally sought out acupuncture to address post-concussive symptoms. 

I wish you well. Migraines are not for the faint of heart.

The only thing that has worked for me is a preventative dose of Nortriptyline at night. I think I'm on a pretty low dose (I forget exactly what), but I have noticed a huge difference. I almost never get migraines anymore and I had started to get them A LOT after getting pregnant and then raising the kids. It had become debilitating. I think that Nortriptyline was originally developed for depression, but now is used for other things - I think that's just because better, more effective medications for depression came along. Good luck!

~Mailisha 

I've also suffered from chronic yet unpredictable migraines, ever since I was a teenager. After decades of dealing with them only through medication, I found one source of relief last year by visiting a chiropractor who focused on Network Spinal Analysis. She worked on the various tensions in my body that were likely triggering some of my migraines (mostly my neck and shoulder area where I carry a lot of tension). I found that my sessions with helped me immensely with staving off migraines. Unfortunately, she has closed off her practice to pursue her personal goals, so I've been searching for a similar chiropractor as my migraines have returned. I'll be following this thread to see what others suggest!

When our daughter was a teenager she had some very bad migraines to the point where she occasionally did not know where she was and sometimes "talked in tongues."  We tried a bunch of medications but they were not effective. As a result we took her to a doctor who was well trained in hypnotism and he helped her in several sessions then taught her how to self-hypnotize and she become cured shortly after that.

Here's my-- hope it will help as if there's one thing true about migraine, it's that it is so personal. I was diagnosed with migraine 20 years ago when I was in college. My headaches became chronic in my mid 20s (12-24 hour episodes of intense pain/vomiting). I tracked triggers, saw an acupuncturist, added fish oil supplements, started a gluten free diet and stopped drinking (I never was a big drinker). Alas, none of it really helped. I liked acupuncture, but it only provided mild relief and was impossible to schedule in a meaningful way for my headaches. It didn't seem to actually prevent them. Also, there was always a trigger slightly beyond my control (the fog rolled in! my period started! my co-worker wore cologne!) that would spiral into a headache. While Imitrex diminished some headaches, they often came back significantly stronger a day later.

When I was around 30 I read a New Yorker article...something about the health care industry. It had an aside about beta blockers for migraine prophylaxis rarely being prescribed despite their affordability and documented pharmaceutical history. I read up a bit more and asked my doctor about them. She prescribed me 20mg of Propranolol twice daily. With the exception of when I was pregnant, I've taken it for the last ten years. It has been a game changer for me-- honestly it gave me my life back. On the Propranolol, I occasionally get a headache (every two or three months?) in which case I follow my current ritual:
1) take Aleve, 2) take Ondansetron (anti nausea...because as soon as I start vomiting, I can't stop and then am dealing with dehydration and migraine), 3) drink some electrolytes, 4) eat something, and, if it's close to bedtime, 5) take a melatonin and go to sleep.
This works for me and the side affects of Propranolol don't bother me. (To be clear, I do not take Imitrex any longer-- it was never an effective treatment for me.) I've read about newer therapies recently and am somewhat curious, but I'm so satisfied with my current migraine management, I'm not motivated to change. I wish you the best and hope you find a path that works for you.

My main recommendation is to figure out your triggers and avoid them. They can be things you eat like chocolate, cheese or onions. Things you smell like natural gas, perfume, or car exhaust. Something internal like hormones. Even bright lights or loud sounds can cause migraines. I know it can be hard to figure this out while you are in pain. But try some small change every day try to find your triggers.