Migraines

[eaglesprings]

My husband gets severe migraines accompanied with nausea. My 10 year old has been diagnosed with "visual migraines." Sometimes, she has a slight headache or slight dizziness, but mostly she "sees lights." It's not terribly bothersome to her, and since there may be little to no pain, I hate to give her pain meds (and she hates taking medicine).

Does anyone know of a natural supplement that may help one or both of my migraine sufferers?

[Wilson]

Magnesium may help. Also, make sure they are both drinking plenty of _water_ during the day. I've heard some people like acupuncture for things like this, but I haven't tried it myself.

[1973VW]

My teen gets ocular migraines. We have mostly associated them with days in which she doesn't get enough water, but sometimes caffeine and chocolate have been consumed suspiciously close to them. They don;t last but a couple of hours. We don't use pain meds.

[eaglesprings]

Ah, thanks, VW. I had the terminology wrong. It is ocular migraines.

I know that MSG sets them off in a lot of people, and we don't get a lot of that around the house. However, she does eat a lot of processed food. I'm sure a change in diet might help her, but she doesn't handle change very well. Perhaps that will be a summertime goal.

She does eat chocolate covered ice cream bars. Hmmmm..... But, she doesn't "see the lights" every time after eating them.

Wilson, do you have any idea how much magnesium she should get? I might try to research acupressure -- something we can do at home. Again, they aren't really severe or bothersome, but she doesn't really like them.

[Wilson]

For the magnesium dosage, I'd use whatever the product you buy recommends. Actually, I'd start by cutting that in half and increase from there.

[eaglesprings]

I just checked her multi-vitamin, and was surprised at how little magnesium was in there! Only 3% of the RDV for her age. She takes a fiber supplement that has magnesium listed in the ingredients, but it doesn't say how much. It's like fourth or fifth down on the list.

I can search the web, but does anyone happen to know what foods are rich in magnesium?

[Wilson]

I found this list...
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/magnesium.asp#h2
looks like Halibut, good nuts, spinach, etc.

[LarkinJoanna]

My husband gets occular migraines but not often. The first time it happened he didn't know what it was. He was driving and went blind in one eye for about 15 minutes. He has no pain and all he can see is gray. His eyesight gradually comes back. He went to the doctor and they told him it was a type of occular migraine.

[1973VW]

http://houstonheadacheclinic.com/diet.html

This website has excellent info on foods often associated with the headaches. When I read this out to my teen, she freaked: It was her whole diet!!

[hcguy25]

I just wanted to say that you should be careful when taking supplements like magnesium for migraines. I get migraines, I am not sure what the actual name is but I get nauseous and light makes my head throb. I tried magnesium and it really helped for awhile. I thought I had found a natural, inexpensive way to get rid of the horrible pain. But after awhile the migraines came back worse than ever and when I talked to my doctor about it, she said that happens a lot with magnesium; it can cause rebound headaches that are worse than the original. If you are going to take it, take it sparingly.

[Wilson]

That's really strange - everything I've read states that a magnesium deficiency can cause migraines. What is/was your calcium intake like? Too much calcium can rob the body of magnesium. Is there anything on the 'net that documents an experience like yours? That would really suck to think you've found a cure, but it comes back ten-fold :-(.

[eaglesprings]

Well, what I'm discovering is that the kids (not just the one with the ocular migraines) might have a magnesium deficiency. Looking at our vitamin bottles, evaluating our diets (even though we eat things on the "magnesium rich foods"), and my own experience years ago with an on-line site where I entered my own food intake, came up magnesium deficient.

It is hard for me to focus on this issue right now, but I plan on addressing it over the summer. We have a recommended daily allowance figure, and I suppose I should use that as a guide. (Wilson's site gave that by age).

Oldest could probably live with her ocular migraines at this point, with just a little TLC, but I don't want them to get worse, either. If I can do anything healthwise to help husband, I certainly want to do that.

Understandably, any supplement or vitamin could be overdone, and I do want to avoid that, as well.

For myself, I've popped supplements and vitamins at the drop of a hat, based on some health book, but now, I'm just wanting to start with the RDA. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I'm afraid we might be deficient. Who knows what else we aren't getting enough of!