No Pain-Wane for Migraine Pill Poppers

For the pill popper, it seems intuitive: if one or two pills won’t do the trick, pop a couple more. But as a recent study suggests, this is precisely the wrong way to combat a problem.

The report isn’t quite so generic in its advisement – I’d have more respect for the report if it were, but be that as it may – but confines its advisement to those who suffer from migraines.

Before I get to the report, let me just say I can sympathize with migraine sufferers and don’t necessarily fault them for taking so many pills. After all, some people suffer from as many as 15 migraine episodes a month. And as I’ve been told by many people who suffer from these hellacious headaches, migraines are truly, truly painful (fortunately I’ve never experienced one, so I can’t paint a verbal picture of their hellacious nature). On the other hand, though, if this report is accurate, it seems as though the frequency of these migraines may be something of their own making.

Published in the aptly named journal Headache, researchers report that those who took pain medications on a continuous basis were more likely to develop worsening conditions, with those conditions worsening in tandem with the amount of pain medication they took.

The study involved approximately 8,200 people who experienced migraines at least occasionally. After a year, they found that those people who took prescription-based medication for their migraines found little relief over the calendar year. In fact, what were once only “episodic” migraines become chronic in nature (about 2.5 percent of the 8,200 people developed what’s called “transformed migraine”).

These findings aren’t dissimilar to what the chronically sleep deprived turn to when sluggishness abounds – over-caffeinated drinks like Red Bull and Amped. They may seem to work for a while, sure, but the goosed-up guzzler invariably comes crashing down, feeling worse than before once the buzz buzzes off. Further, the more drinks he or she consumes, the more he or she adapts to that amount of caffeine, leading to even more dizzying doses of drinks brewed for “energy” (I use energy in quotes because they do more harm than good; you can read more about them under “Energy Drinks” in the “E” section of “A to Z Health”).

So, if pill popping is the exact wrong way to attack a migraine, what’s the precise right way? You guessed it – treating it naturally.

I’ve documented how to combat migraines naturally in my article “Natural Migraine Remedies.” In it, you’ll find exactly what natural nutrients to consume, what supplements to take and how many milligrams you need to take, the best kind of diet for migraine sufferers (high or low carbohydrate?), whether or not exercise helps treat migraines (I’ll give you one guess) and much more.

I take no delight in the knowledge that people are suffering from migraines both in intensity and frequency. But I do delight in the fact that this reconfirms my commitment to natural health. It’s a testament to why a life free of prescriptions is the best medicine any doctor could ever prescribe!