Photo by Jimmy Bay on Unsplash
Who is affected?
About 12-15% of the population of Ireland suffer with migraine, which is more than half a million people. Women are 3 times more likely to be affected compared to men. This can manifest as severe pain, vision and balance disturbances and inability to concentrate.
Migraines can be chronic, some occur a couple of times a month (often correlating with your menstrual cycle), to weekly, even to daily occurrences. This can have a severe impact on job performance and generally makes life unpredictable and a little bit scary (as in waking up every day wondering “will I have a migraine today?”)
Conventional Approach
The conventional medical approach is to prescribe over the counter analgesics (pain-killers) such as aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen and if these do not work more powerful medications are prescribed.
While these medications can reduce or temporarily stop the pain, they often have very undesirable side-effects; that can be quite severe at time. In fact most migraine medications can cause drowsiness, digestive upset and impaired motor function.
The next step if these medications are not working is to move towards occipital nerve blocks, botox injections and in some cases surgical interventions or IV medications. These come with significantly higher risks and often deliver little or no added results.
How are migraines affecting you?
People with chronic, intermittent migraines often get incredibly frustrated and anxious especially when their medications are not working as they had hoped they would.
Plus, migraines have real consequences the really affect quality of life. People with chronic, recurrent migraines often have to cope with things like:
- mild to moderate depression and/or anxiety which affects their social life and relationships.
- unpredictability on showing up for work and family/friends occasions.
- not performing to the standards they know they can reach at their work, because they have to leave early or not even show up because of their migraines.
- having to deal with nausea, dizziness, speech problems, and loss of appetite from the pain.
- Feeling like they can’t keep up with the normal, fun demands of daily life…like spending time with their children or quality time with their partner and friends.
- Or noticing that the invites to parties etc have stopped because they always have to say ‘no’ because of the migraines.
A different approach!
Well, over my time as a natural practitioner, I can say with absolute confidence that there is a different way to approach that DOES work!
Using natural approaches, it is totally possible to have less pain (even NO pain), better mood, more energy and focus – because you start to get to the ROOT cause of your migraines, instead of just taking medications or procedures to mask them.
Important disclaimer: DO NOT stop taking your medication without supervision of your GP/specialist. Stopping medication suddenly might cause serious health problems and complications.
Here is how I KNOW that it is possible to heal migraines with natural medicine, so you can live the life you want and truly feel better.
Firstly, whether you realise it or not, migraines are almost always a RESULT of something else going wrong in your body.
What may be causing your migraine?
For example, lack of deep, restful sleep can have a huge negative impact on the body’s natural ability to heal itself – the body’s anti-inflammatory and pain-management systems are impeded. Your body heals while it sleeps, secreting growth hormones and undergoing massive tissue repair. So, over time lack of deep, restful sleep causes your body to fall behind on its ongoing maintenance and repair and problems like migraine can arise.
Another reason may be that many people suffer from irregular bowels – whether constipation or the opposite – for many, many years. Your bowels are one of the most important centres for clearing and managing hormones from your body. When this part of your body is not working the way it should, this can has serious impact on your hormonal system, and can lead to migraines.
One of the most common issues I see that lead to migraines, is chronic inflammation. Inflammation is actually a natural part of the healing process but because of poor diet and lifestyle habits; and even poorly managed stress – your body gets locked into a perpetual loop of inflammation. This disrupts many pathways that can lead of migraines.
Stress is often a major contributor to migraines and reducing stress can have a huge impact on migraine severity and frequency. As above, stress leads to increased inflammation in the body. Stress causes the body to release certain particles in the body that make the blood vessels expand and become inflamed. This causes nerve cells to become over-stimulated leading to pain and other symptoms of migraine.
Stress can also cause subtle sleep problems, in that there may be problems getting to sleep, staying asleep or both. This, as mentioned above will have a serious impact on your body’s natural anti-inflammatory and pain-relief systems. The growth and repair hormones are not getting the chance to complete their functions and this can lead to migraine.
Cortisol, the hormone released when in stress, can negatively impact the body’s natural pain-killing function. Chronic, high levels of fluctuations of cortisol in the body causes the hormonal system to become imbalanced and can trigger severe migraines, as the endorphins (natural pain-killers) are not being secreted as they should.
Are you looking for help with your chronic migraines?
All you have to do is request your FREE consultation with me and we will meet to discuss your case. It is an honest down-to-earth, no pressure conversation in my clinic where I can listen to your story and review some basics of your medical history.
Once we have talked, and if I feel truly confident that I can help you, you will have the opportunity to move forward and work with me.
I am here to help. If you are ready to explore YOUR possibilities for healing, click the button below to request your FREE consultation now.