Migraine

Migraine is a debilitating disorder and may profoundly affect the daily lives of people who suffer from it. It’s a chronic neurological disorder characterised by recurrent acute and severe headaches, occurring when there is an exposure to a trigger that facilitates the flare up of a crisis. Migraine is a name that derives from Greek name hemikrania and means “pain on one side of the head”.

A crisis of migraine consists typically of a pain on one side of the head, often a throbbing pain which can last 2 to 7 hours. It is characterised by headaches that can be mild or intense and comes associated with a multiple types of symptoms related to the autonomic nervous system. These associated symptoms are nausea, vomiting, increased sensitivity to light (photophobia), and an increased sensitivity to sound (phonophobia). Pains may be aggravated by physical activity. So people who suffer from migraine tend to withdraw and collect in a dark room without wishing to have direct contact with people who usually are around them.

Most people develop symptoms of aura, which can consist of a disturbance of vision, modification of the language, sensory or motor disturbances. The aura symptoms are a warning that a crisis of migrane is to occur. Sometimes the aura symptoms are simply not followed by the headache.

There is an estimate that 10% of the world’s population suffers from migraine at some point in their life.

The triggers or precipitants of the acute migraine attack

There is a possibility that an acute migraine attack will be precipitated by one of these factors:

  • Estrogen fluctuation in women;
  • Consumption of alcohol;
  • Stress;
  • Sensory stimulation like intense light and sound stimulation like high sound;
  • Certain types of allopathic drugs such as nitroglycerin (vasodilators), oral contraceptives (the pill);

Conventional treatment of an acute migraine attack

Within the allopathic mode of treatment of migraine, the choices are pain killers like ibuprofen (Nurofen, Advil and Nuprin) and acetaminophen (Paracetamol).

There is no treatment to prevent the crisis. At this point is very important to consider the advantage of a homeopathic treatment that takes the trigger points into consideration.

Homeopathic treatment of migraine

During a consultation with a patient who is suffering from migraine, multiple inquiries are made, in search of individual symptoms that the patient presents. The homeopathic professional needs to know in detail all the possible triggers of the migraine crisis. It is also very important for the patient to list all the individual symptoms before, during, after the crisis. Special attention is also given to the concomitant symptoms that occur during a crisis, and are localized in other areas of the body.

This means that if we have two individuals with migraine in front of a homeopathic professional, these two individuals have great chance to have different symptoms and, therefore, receive different homeopathic medications. Homeopathic treatment is tailored to the patient.

Frequently asked questions that are part of a homeopathic consultation

In order to find a homeopathic medicine tailored to a patient who suffers from migraine, is very important to understand how this person suffers the migraine.

Here are some of the questions that can be made in order to know which type of homeopathic medicine this patient will receive:

1. What are the possible triggers of pain?

Is the patient’s pain related to hormonal fluctuation that occurs in women, i.e. before, during or after the menstrual period?

2. Where is the headache located?

Which the laterality of pain? What is the region of the head that is covered by the pain? Does the pain spreads to other places?

3. About the type of pain

What type of pain does the patient feel? Is it a pulsating pain, a sore burning, or as shocking pain? Is the pain constant or intermittent?

Does the pain gets worse in certain circumstances, for example with noise, smells, or light? Are there circumstances that improve the pain, for example  better sleeping or taking a bath?

4. How the patient behaves emotionally before, during or after the crisis?

There are patients who prefer to be alone, do not tolerate even the voice of another person, or want to cry but fail, or there are patients who are extremely angry during the crisis, while others get very tearful etc.

After collecting all this vital information, a final assessment is made, and only one drug is given to the patient (Clinical Hahnemannian Homeopathy), treating it on a very deep level.


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