[HN Gopher] Migraine is more than a headache - a rethink offers ...
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Migraine is more than a headache - a rethink offers hope
Author : rntn
Score : 31 points
Date : 2025-02-18 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| markx2 wrote:
| I was around 13 when I had my first migraine. A solid block of
| pain on the right side of my head. That occasional migraine
| became more frequent over the years. I had a headache 24/7 in one
| specific place in my head.
|
| In my early 30's, after blood tests, food elimination, x-rays and
| finally an MRI I was told that I had Chronic Daily Migraines.
|
| Most days were 6-7/10 pain. Those days that were 10/10 I
| perfected the art of lying down and breathing in such a way that
| I barely moved. Noise / light were never an issue, the pain got
| worse when I moved.
|
| Then I got a daith piercing.
|
| I had read that a daith could help.
|
| I got the daith ~14 years ago and I have not had any sort of
| headache since. Both my daughters who had migraines got a daith
| and they too have no headaches.
|
| I get the sample size is not useful, but if you have migraines,
| go into your local proper piercing studio and ask for a daith -
| they will almost certainly reply "On which side of your head is
| the pain?"
| canadiantim wrote:
| fascinating, thanks for sharing
| ToDougie wrote:
| truly fascinating comment..... will have to research this
| further!
| isoprophlex wrote:
| If this is because of the piercing doig some vagus nerve
| stimulation, do you think a simple, small clip or something
| placed in the right position could help as well?
| markx2 wrote:
| That I do not know.
|
| It's worth trying but the positioning would be tricky.
|
| All I know is as I have posted - the daith piercing stopped
| the pain.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Thanks anyway, I'm definitely looking into this.
|
| Suffering from the occasional migraine myself (3-4x year)
| it seems a bit too drastic for myself... but my wife has
| very frequent migraines, anything that could possibly help
| is worth investigating
| markx2 wrote:
| I got a new puppy - Dogue de Bordeaux - some months ago
| and she was/is on a raw food diet, so I had to get that
| delivered frozen.
|
| Couple of deliveries in and I got chatting to the guy
| bringing the food. He mentioned he had headaches
| constantly. I told him about the daith.
|
| Days later he messaged me - he'd got a daith after we
| talked and today, for the first time in 10+ years he woke
| in no pain, no need to take codeine.
|
| Just go to a proper piercing place, not some "Claire's"
| type place.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Try https://safepiercing.org/ !
| orthecreedence wrote:
| I've heard of this piercing so many times and always wrote it
| off as some mass hypnosis quick fix that would change nothing.
| Your comment made me reopen that box I closed years ago. I'm
| very curious now.
|
| Did you get the piercing on your left or right ear?
| markx2 wrote:
| Right ear because the pain was on the right side of my head.
| jmhammond wrote:
| I'm willing to try it! Are you able to wear earbuds with the
| daith piercing? Airpods Pro are one of my most-used pieces of
| tech both at work live-streaming classes and at home listening
| to books and music.
| markx2 wrote:
| Yes!
|
| I have worn various and my current are Airpods 2 Pro.
|
| The daith is discreet, does not get in the way of anything.
| whutsurnaym wrote:
| Throwing in my anecdata:
|
| I had migraines at least once every two weeks for most of my
| life. Nothing too out of the ordinary, just that 7/10 dull pain
| in the center of my head that shut me down for 5 or 6 hours.
|
| I'm very skeptical about supposed instant fixes like this. I
| didn't expect it to work, but I wanted to start getting ear
| piercings and I figured I'd give it a shot with something not
| too flashy. I went with my wife to her piercing appointment and
| convinced them to pierce my left daith while we were already
| there.
|
| That was at least seven years ago. I haven't had a migraine
| since. I keep assuming it's placebo and it'll wear off, but it
| hasn't.
| aszantu wrote:
| I seem to get migraines from plant fats and stimulants like
| caffeine.also caffeine withdrawal.Been drinking chaga coffee a
| few days and feel so much better in the evening
| greenavocado wrote:
| Magnesium L-Threonate changed my life. I no longer experience
| headaches daily.
| wozer wrote:
| > Migraine can even drive full-blown visual hallucinations
| similar to the 'reflections of the living light' painted by
| Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century abbess who was thought to
| have experienced a condition that is now called migraine with
| aura.
|
| I don't think the aura effects are usually considered
| hallucinations?
|
| I get mild migraines sometimes, with hardly noticeable headache,
| but with aura. In a way, it's pretty cool. You can directly
| perceive the abnormal brain activity and how it develops in real
| time. (I get the classic zigzag lines wandering across the field
| of vision.)
| readyplayernull wrote:
| AI hype terminology? Should be a visual effect.
| bootloop wrote:
| I also have migraine with aura. There are visual effects but
| also when I am looking into the mirror I can't see half of my
| face and give this is a wrong perception of reality you might
| consider it a hallucination?
| constantlm wrote:
| When I have aura it's always morbidly fascinating to me how a
| part of my vision is not black, but it's just "missing"
| soupfordummies wrote:
| my mom used to get these and said it was like "seeing dots"
|
| anecdotally of course too, but is it more common for women?
| I've only ever known 3-4 people that got these kinds of
| migraines and they were all women.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| I sometimes but not always get an aura before a migraine.
|
| Which was pretty fun the first time i got an aura, as i was
| working in a chemistry lab. I described what was happening
| (loss of vision, flashes of light, rapidly oscillating black
| and white patterns) to this greybeard lab technician and
| within 5 minutes the entire lab was evacuated, out of fear of
| some weird chemical poisoning us all.
| bootloop wrote:
| Yes, its much more common for women, its rare for men.
| doubled112 wrote:
| I happen to be a man who gets migraines with aura, but I do
| think they're more common in women. They started when I was
| 14.
|
| I get visual issues like tunnel vision and sparklies, but I
| also get numbness in my face and extremities, confuse my
| words (right parts of speech, not what I intend to say), and
| often vomit.
|
| Needless to say, the first one scared the crap out of my
| mother and I.
|
| I may or may not have a headache when this happens.
|
| Neat, eh? I was talking to a guy who suffered from seizures
| in college, and apparently his "aura" is very similar, and
| I've always wondered if there was some connection since my
| father also suffers from epilepsy.
| tbirdny wrote:
| Migraines and epilepsy have a lot in common, including some
| symptoms and triggers. Drugs and things that lower seizure
| threshold also tend to cause migraines. Some epilepsy drugs
| also act as migraine prophylactics.
| rconti wrote:
| > "I used to think that disability travels with pain, and it's
| only when the pain gets severe that people are impaired. That's
| not only false, but we have treatments to do something about it,"
| says Richard Lipton, a neurologist at the Albert Einstein College
| of Medicine in New York City.
|
| Am I the only one unable to grok this statement?
| orthecreedence wrote:
| He's saying that he used to just view the pain of migraines as
| a disability, but now realizes that there are other components
| to migraines besides pain that cause disability (such as brain
| fog, emotional instability, blindness, etc)
| rconti wrote:
| Thank you, that makes more sense now; with that explanation I
| can re-read the original quotes.
| tiltowait wrote:
| I think everyone who suffers migraines has their own
| "relationship" with them.
|
| Myself, I can tell when I am "pre-migraine" and know I have to
| sit down for a bit lest one develops. They most often come from
| eating junk food after exercise (I'm looking at you, Fritos). And
| warming my hands often helps speed the recovery, though I always
| end up with "tender brain" for 24-48h after.
|
| I'm intrigued by another poster having success with Magnesium
| L-Threonate and will be placing an order today. Even if I don't
| have a migraine, I have a headache 8 days out of 10.
| tiahura wrote:
| My eyes were opened a few years ago when I was reading my mom's
| brain mri report. She had cancer and was undergoing radiation
| treatment. The MRI noted lesions and said they could be due to
| cancer/radiation OR MIGRAINES!
|
| Holy moly! Migraines can cause brain damage!
| bootloop wrote:
| Anything backing this up except that one report? I haven't
| heard of headaches or migraines causing permanent damage.
| tiahura wrote:
| Migraine Is Associated With Magnetic Resonance Imaging White
| Matter Abnormalities https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneu
| rology/fullarticle/7...
|
| "Research suggests that the answer is yes. Migraines can
| cause lesions, which are areas of damage to the brain."
| https://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/migraine-brain-
| les...
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Can confirm, I had a brain MRI in my early 20s and had a
| number of white matter lesions that were supposedly caused by
| migraines. No other cognitive or neurological issues. But I'm
| due for another scan soon and hoping they haven't worsened :P
| bootloop wrote:
| After checking on my migraine with aura by doing a MRI they found
| a large AVM in my brain which could kill me any time.
|
| So if you get the chance, take an brain MRI. You never know what
| they might find.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| I've thought for a long time now that everyone has a migraine all
| the time, but migraine sufferers temporarily lack the brain's
| ability to ignore the ever-present pain.
|
| In other words, the migraine isn't the addition of pain, but the
| absense of a pain relief mechanism. I have no sources to back
| this up, other than personal observation.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| That doesn't explain the auras.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aura_(symptom)
| bootloop wrote:
| I got told that it could be indeed the case that my brain
| continuously has small seizures but only from time to time
| they break trough and cause the pain and auras which I would
| then experience. They wanted to measure the brainwaves to
| figure out if that was the case. That would also somehow fit
| what OP said, so I guess this is known in the medical world
| already. Or at least something in that direction.
| iainctduncan wrote:
| I have been a migraineur for decades. Mine are classic aura, with
| the whole "looking through broken glass" thing for a half hour or
| so when they happen. This year one of my partner's doctors
| mentioned positive results from supplementing with Vitamin B-2
| and Coenzyme Q10, and it has dramatcially lowered their
| frequency. Mine are especially bad when the air pressure is
| seesawing which it does a lot here in the spring and fall, but I
| would guess I'm down to something like 20% of the previous years
| numbers.
|
| Definitely worth trying.
| pan69 wrote:
| > "looking through broken glass"
|
| I think we have similar symptoms, but I have no headache, just
| the "broken glass" that passes over my vision. Usually takes
| about 15 mins to half an hour or so to pass.
|
| This is the best visual representation that I have found of it
| ove the years:
|
| https://imgur.com/gallery/kY0I0Ht
| bootloop wrote:
| Yes that's silent migraine with aura, you experience the
| visual effects but not the headache. It's rare but happens
| for some people.
|
| The representation is really good in my opinion! Gives me
| flashbacks.
| tbirdny wrote:
| First, I know different people have different triggers from me. I
| used to have migraines every few days to every few months from
| age 13 to 23. These would incapacitate me. I would get the aura
| and be almost blind for an hour, then throw up a couple times,
| and have a bad headache for 2-4 hours, then I could function
| again but still felt crummy for the next 24 hours. I noticed that
| pickles were a trigger, and I thought "pickles have a lot of
| sodium". So, out of desperation as something to try, I read the
| labels of everything I was eating and cut out everything that had
| more than a little sodium: frozen pizza, frozen dinners, deli
| meats, etc. At the time I was having migraines every few days,
| and then I didn't have another migraine for years. I was so glad
| they stopped. I now doubt it was the sodium. In cutting out
| sodium, I happen to cut out processed foods, which includes lots
| of suspicious ingredients. I suspect Tyramine was the main
| culprit. There's a diet called The Headache Diet that is focused
| on minimizing Tyramine. Guess what else pickles have a lot of?
| For last last 30 years, here are all the things that have caused
| my migraines: Lithium Carbonate (Orotate is OK), Pickled Herring
| (Tyramine), Soy Sauce (Tyramine), Hyaluronic Acid (synthetic,
| Mobilee is OK), Tianeptine, and Sulbutiamine. Every migraine I
| have had in the last 30 years can be explained by those - only
| 8-12 migraines total. I still precisely control my sodium and eat
| no processed foods.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Any other migraineurs share what I call "Silver Bullet Fatigue"
| at trying new treatments? I've been at this for six decades with
| no magic solution for my own migraine problems, and I've lost
| count of all the neurological investigations, meds, scans,
| treatments, and helpful or sometimes utterly silly suggestions
| that have come up short over the years. Some have come close but
| had undesireable side effects, others made me very ill in their
| own right. At this point I just don't have much desire to go
| through the treatment wringer again. Am I alone in this sort of
| fatigue?
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