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Title

Migraine And Headache Help


By Dennis and Jill Abbott


Smashwords Edition


Copyright 2011 Dennis and Jill Abbott


Smashwords Edition, License Notes


This ebook is licensed for your personal learning only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.


All rights reserved


Introductory

Jill Here!!


Sit back, relax and relate to this if you're a migraine sufferer. This is composed of two authors. One being Dennis, the husband of the Migraine sufferer, and Jill, the migraine sufferer. What better way to help you than let you know that I suffer with migraines to, and what you read in here is from someone that has walked the same path as you have, curled up in bed and cried because of the pain just like you, put damp towels on my head, and pretended my teeth hurt. You to, I bet.


My migraines are at the top of migraines that just wouldn't respond to different methods of treatment, until as a last resort, we found someone that aggressively went after them. A no holds barred approach, so to speak. We don't know at what point you're at with your migraines and headaches. You may have migraines that just need to be managed. But some that read our pages can relate to my migraines very well. Later, my husband will give you the top pages in our site, the ones you can use to maybe better understand your headaches, and what we think you can do, all the way down to surgery, if that's what it takes to help your migraines.

Many migraine sufferers write about their headaches, and what they did to help them. But the ones we want to touch base with are Yours. Sooo, let's get started.


My name is Jill, and I am 59 years old. (ouch) I have been married to my (wonderful husband, he told me to write that) for 42 years.


We have been madly in love since we were teenagers. I have a wonderful Daughter, Son-In-Law, and rambunctious Grandson who is thirteen. I started having migraines in my early forties. Had my monthly headaches and migraines for years, depending if I caught them in time, as to how much they hurt.


Then for some unknown reason at around 40, they took a wrong turn.  Many young ones have migraines, but why 40 something? The pain, nausea, sensitively to sound, bright lights, and even smell are overwhelming. Many days I just wanted to crawl into a hole, and pull the dirt in behind me, and never come out.  You know where I'm coming from, don't you? I hope your migraines aren't that bad though.


These headaches have taken their toll on not only me, but also my husband.


Below you will read about just some of the places we've been, all in the name of migraine relief. I've been diagnosed with migraines, then migraines with tension headaches thrown in. Then diagnosed with never ending migraines. What does this tell you about doctors, and some were headache specialist to? Everyone had their opinion. They all came to the same conclusion, my head hurt, but on how to help, they didn't have a clue.


( My husband swears if he had a license he could treat headaches as well as most doctors.) I've been on so many medicines, with no relief whatsoever, to a Chiropractor, whom the doctors told me not to go to, was checked for early menopause, to a dentist, who said I needed a mouth guard, no relief. By that time I was getting Imitrex shots often, and couldn't get rid of the pain. Finally, at a pain management clinic that I was referred to, a doctor sat my husband and I down, and said. We think she's just having rebound headaches, (more on that) and she has to stop taking all the pain medicine, and I quote, that the other doctors had given me.


That helped some when I quit, but I just had to suffer with the pain when I got bad migraines. Have you been down this road? After ten years of suffering every day, and searching, and being  referred from one headache doctor, (and I use that term loosely), to another, we finally found a headache clinic, and a great headache specialist that said. And I quote, (migraines are normal in people believe it or not, but a 24/7 headache is not, and needs to be addressed. Then that's what he did. He went through what could be the cause of this headache, and addressed issues that other doctors had never said anything about.


Guess what, I'm feeling less pain now, and it's only going to get better. The moral of this story is, never give up. If you have relentless pain, and don't find relief, just remember, there's a doctor that knows how to help. You find him. 


Dennis here.

Thanks Jill for your story.


These next couple of pages are my story


How to Find Relief From Migraines


Are we doctors? No: Do we have training in treating headaches? No


 The same migraine and headache sufferers keep going back to their doctors. How many are being helped? It took fifteen years for us to find help. Don't you take this long to find relive.


Hi, my name is Dennis, and my wife's name is Jill.

And Jill is a migraine sufferer.


We live in a small rural area with one dog, and five or more cats. Lately, I've been seeing Jill walking around, and since I can look at her and know immediately if she has a headache,  I'm not seeing as much pain. The answer to that comes later. Let's back up a tad here.


Why did we write this book?


How many headaches are misdiagnosed? With about four hours or less of actually talking to your headache doctor a year, he or she had better hit on the right combination, and the right diagnose, or you're in for a painful, and bumpy road. Not only this book, but our website started out of frustration from fifteen years of just observing some doctors, and how they go about treating headaches. To much pain medicine, then wondering why the headaches got worse. Here are some lines that we heard, and I will quote them. A headache specialist at a major hospital in our state told her he couldn't help her, on her first visit, and to go back to her general practitioner.


Another telling me to use my authority to make her eat better. Can you imagine a Doctor telling someone that? And this came from a headache center.  Needless to say, we didn't go back. They never had a clue as how to help her. 


How about another that put her in the hospital twice within four months with medicines. One from an accident, and another time we thought she had a stroke. But later was traced to the medicine that was given to her. Another doctor that has since went to the Mayo clinic, after about a year of treating her, looked at her one day, and said, I'm going to send you somewhere else, because I'm not helping you. I'm just giving you dope, and it's not working.


Are we the only ones that this has happened to?


While many migraine sufferers are helped, there are those migraine sufferers that are nightmares for doctors.   Millions of migraine sufferers don't follow the guidelines to less painful days, and that doesn't help the doctors that's treating them. I remember reading a book that a doctor wrote, and he said that he wasn't helping migraine sufferers, but they were helping themselves.  He hit the nail on the head. Learn all you can about your type of headache, whether you have migraines, cluster headaches, or tension headaches. Then you'll most likely be able to keep your threshold down to a level that doesn't require a trip to the ER, or bed rest.

Are we bashing doctors?

Absolutely not


My wife has a great headache specialist now. We're going to give you some advice later on seeing the same Doctor without obtaining some type of migraine relief.

There's somewhere around 28,000,000 people in the United States alone,  that suffer with migraines, and 45,000,000 or so that suffer with headaches. Are you, or someone you love, one of them? As the population increases, there will be even more  that suffer relentlessly with the pain, and frustration of migraines and headaches. Are they being helped?  Millions, I would say, but that would be a guess. How about the ones that fall between the cracks? My Doctor tells me she treats people that are suffering with headaches, but she doesn't help many.


You guys deserve better than that.


You don't need to suffer with the pain of headaches and migraines, and not be helped. We have to depend on ourselves, and that's especially true with migraine sufferers. Doctors don't always let their patients know methods that can give relief. They assume they already know. We're going to give you some causes of migraines and headaches, and something may ring a bell as what you may be doing that may be triggering your headaches.  No, this isn't a book on how we helped our headaches, although we've talked some about them, but it's one on how you can help your headaches. We have hundreds of pages in our website, and we're going to give you a few of the most important ones plus more tips to see if you can make a connection on your headaches and migraines. Advice about what not to do.


The end of this book will be about what my wife had to do to find relief for her migraines. A long journey, to say the least. Our e-mails tell us that many migraine sufferers have chronic headaches. We'll let you know some treatments to apply that just might help. From Vitamins to pillows to preventive medicines to many more forgotten things can, and does help many migraine sufferers.


 There are somewhere around three hundred different things that could cause your head to hurt, some internally, and others externally. So you see how vast the treatment can be for the relief of migraines. There's no quick fixes to most migraines, no magic pills for most. All migraine sufferers dance to a different tune. What causes your head to hurt probably won't be the same as your friends. With this book, you'll be able to come back as often as you like, and when you've overstepped your migraine boundaries, or forgot if what you've done is a migraine trigger, then you'll have it at your fingertips.


 We know that headache sufferers can have mild to moderate headaches, but seriously, how many have mild migraines, or mild cluster headaches?

What's the number one cause of migraines getting out of control?

If you said over the counter medicine, or pain medicine prescribed by doctors, then you're absolutely right.


You already know what migraines are, a chronic neurological disorder, that can have moderate to severe pain with them. The ratio between men and women are about three to one, favoring women. You know the name of migraines, but they should be called pain graines. Am I not right? Most migraines effect only one side of the head, and generally last between four hours, to several days.


Not only is the pain throbbing, and pounding for some, but unlike most tension headaches, a migraine comes with nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, and sound. Any kind of activity that wouldn't bother most people can, and usually does aggravate migraines.


And about one third of migraine sufferers will experience either an aura, or the above symptoms before the pain.

Before we get to what every migraine sufferer has to do for relief, now mind you it may be different for each migraine sufferer, we'll going to address the most common types of headaches that plague millions of people, and just take a look at the causes, and so forth.


Table of Contents

Chapter 1


Migraines


Headaches and migraines are so vast, as wide as the sky, so to speak.


With Migraine headaches symptoms of nausea, vomiting, migraine auras, and lasting up to several days, you can see how disabling these headaches are.



Migraine headaches and tension headaches affect millions in our country alone. Have you ever wondered why  some migraine sufferers experience one or two headaches a month, while others can have several a week, and yet others have only one a year? That's one to ask your doctor.


 Some sufferers have migraines that can be quieted down by taking Advil for moderate headaches or maybe an Imitrex for a migraine, while others have migraines so severe they have to go to the emergency room at the hospital. Maybe the ones that have the most frequent migraine headaches just go about their beeswax, and don't pay any attention to what they eat or drink, and take more and more pain pills each day hoping that will take the pain away. What do you think? Then they get their migraines out of, what I say, whack.


 

The people that have frequent migraines may be heavy smokers (not good on migraines), get no exercise, drink alcohol, and generally speaking don't learn very much about migraines, and how to use their power and knowledge to  find migraine relief.


 Migraines are kind of like Gout. Some people never have migraines, and some will never have Gout. But if you have had both migraine and Gout you know that both are very painful, and both may be avoided by staying away from what triggers them. And both have to be nursed once you get them because the pain won't go away on its own any time soon. (I have Gout occasionally) 


The pain of migraine can be described as hurting like heck, intense and throbbing. Also, migraines usually start on one side of the head, and may spread to both sides. Sound familiar? You'll probably vomit, or be nauseated. Light, sound, and smell will make your head

worse. Any tingling or numbness in your hands or face? If your head has the above symptoms, and lasts from several hours  to a few days, you are having migraines.


 If you're one of the 28,000,000 people or so that have migraines then you're not as alone as you think. There's many around you in your community that have migraines but sometimes you think you're all alone. If my math is correct that should be close to one out of every ten men and women that have migraine headaches, with women leading. So that's about 500 in my community that suffer with migraines at some point, and at some degree as how severe they become.  

 

How can you as an individual migraine sufferer, help your headaches either before you start taking migraine medication or even while you are taking medicine? Always be on the lookout for something specific that may be the one factor to start the old ball and chain rolling. (blood vessels dilating and constricting) 


Once that starts, there are no take backs are there? You have to ride the migraine out, with all of it's pain and glory, not.


 Are you one of the few that have the very disturbing aura, or visual migraine? Only about 20% of migraine sufferers have this type of migraine, called the classic. "Have you seen the Alice in Wonderland phase used when some are talking about migraines on the web?" To let you know about this phrase, the author Lewis Carroll,  wrote much of Alice In Wonderland while under the influence of migraine headaches.


By trying to get a handle on as many causes/triggers of your migraines as you can, that is a beginning for your migraine relief.

Ask yourself, did I get enough sleep last night, or did the weather change. How did your routine change? 


 When it comes to daily routines, just some little change that you didn't notice, but your head did, can trigger  migraine headaches. 


 Let's go through this scenario. You know what caffeine can do to migraine sufferers. Not enough when you're used to drinking caffeine can give you a migraine, and to much can also give you one. Two possible weekend triggers, (if my wife had a migraine that was worse than usual, it would be on the weekend) is migraine sufferers staying up later, and sleeping in later.  And also, you may drink less caffeine on the weekend. So wham, you have a migraine. Stick to your same routine, it may get dull but then you may not have a migraine headache either.


 And for you women, hormones can also play an important role in migraines. This is the reason men come in second on having migraines.

Also, repressed feelings of anger and frustration may be a factor for some people.  One factor may not have you in any pain, but if you keep adding your specific migraine triggers together, you develop a full migraine. And that isn't what we want to do.


Here's how to handle migraine triggers once you find, and learn them.


If any foods or drinks are your triggers, don't ingest them, such as drinking a glass of red wine, and so forth. Keep yourself on an eating schedule. This means that you eat at regular times each day, and do not skip meals. If light is your migraine trigger, then buy yourself a pair of UV safe sunglasses, and wear hats that have bills to protect you. If you work, bring a desk lamp. Pay attention to your eye fatigue. If stress is a migraine factor, then take some time for yourself, and unwind. Take a few minutes to phone a friend, meditate, or take a walk. If not getting enough sleep triggers your migraine headaches, then try to get seven or eight hours a night with no erratic sleep patterns, and try to go to bed and get up at the same time seven days a week.

Migraines as you know, fall into two types


The first is the common, more migraine sufferers have this type. Then there is the classic. This is the one we want to talk about now. This one comes with the migraine aura, or visual part, unlike the common migraine


The migraine aura is the signal of what is going to happen. The visual disturbance starts anywhere from ten to thirty minutes before the onset of your migraine.