Hey everyone. My name is Anelisa and although this is my first post I've been reading here awhile. I've been getting migraines since I was 8 years old; I'm 22 now. They started out very infrequently and progressed to the point of a severe migrain every 2 or 3 days. I've been in the hospital 3 times and have tried everything my doctor and then highly sought after neurologist could think of. Imitrex as well as Ascotop (zolmitriptan) work, with the later having fewer side effects.
After years of anti-depressents, blood pressure, and various other meds didn't work, I decided to quit them all (except the Imitrex of course). I didn't like taking so many pills that mess with important things like blood pressure when my blood pressure was fine; who knows what it could do to my body in the long run? 18 was too young for those kinds of medicines.
A year ago I moved to Germany and started dating a man who's mother is a nurse studying homeopathic treatments. He expressed his concern to her about my headaches and the medication I was taking (then Ascotop). She made him promise to get me to go to a homeopathic doctor and she would pay. At that point I wasn't in to "that kind of crap" but he explained to me that homeopathic is a very highly respected form of treatment in Europe, thought of as well as "normal" western medicine. In the end, I didn't want him to break his promise to his mother and I really was getting back to the point where I would try ANYTHING. He found me an 82 year old doctor (which olny added to my doubt about the treatment) and I started.
Within one month my headaches went from four a week to one every two weeks. At one point she thought she would try something different and my headaches came back full strength within 4 days. I started back on the other stuff and now they are back to 2 a month. If I had any doubt it is now completely gone. I am not cured yet, but each headache is a little less intense. I can even meditate sometimes when I get my "warning tingles" that tell me when a migraine is comming and then not get one. I would be satisfied with the way they are now, but my homeopathic doc insists that we can make them go away for good.
So, what's working? Well the thought is that there isn't one thing that causes a migraine. Some peoples' bodies respond to internal and external stress by anxiety, some by getting sick all the time, ours by getting a migraine. That stress could be something as simple as a food trigger, or/AND something a little more complicated. For myself, my body doesn't take in calcium properly. When I started homeopathic treatment I was told to make a list of everything that ever went wrong with my body. Not only did she notice that it was a very long list for someone so young, she noticed that many of them were fractured bones. She gave me a form of calcium that my body can accept (tinny tiny particles or something, to be honest I'm a little confused by it) and so my body is responding less to that stress with migraines.
I know many people think this kind of treatment is just crap, (I did) but to be honest, what have you got to lose? I know some of you are as desprate and miserable as I was, and that nothing is working. Try it. There are no harsh side effects, and it can be taken with whatever else you are currently trying. I should mention that homeopathic treatment is not approved by the FDA, but I don't think that means it's bad. The US is one of the only countries that doesn't practice it regularly and in Germany the doctor even sometimes recomends it before other treatment.
I hope you all are feeling better today.