Best migraine I've ever had
Thursday, 15 Dec 2005 Family
I get migraine headaches from time to time. As I've gotten older, they come less frequently and with less severity. They can still ruin my day. Around puberty, they were so bad that I'm lucky I never clawed out my own eyes. It hurts to remember.
We tried a lot of different remedies over the years. The thing that worked best was to take something that made me go to sleep, where at least I wasn't conscious of the pain. These days I've got three treatments - tincture of feverfew, niacin, and good old aspirin. Feverfew and aspirin make the head stop hurting, and niacin dilates the blood vessels in the brain, counteracting the constriction that apparently causes the pain.
So this morning I started getting "migraine sign", a particular vision defect where a spot in the middle of my visual field starts to flicker. Quick like a bunny I downed the feverfew, aspirin, and two niacin capsules. This is the first time I've taken all three at once. A few minutes later, I turned bright pink and began to tingle - the niacin was working. Then the feverfew and aspirin kicked in and I got severely nauseous for a few minutes.
But then I felt fine! Well, relatively, anyway. I spent the rest of the day with the vague hollow ache that tends to linger for a day after a bad migraine, but I never really experienced this migraine.
My thanks to our chiropractor, Dr. Bonnie Spatrisano of River View Chiropractic, for suggesting the niacin. It worked a treat!
We tried a lot of different remedies over the years. The thing that worked best was to take something that made me go to sleep, where at least I wasn't conscious of the pain. These days I've got three treatments - tincture of feverfew, niacin, and good old aspirin. Feverfew and aspirin make the head stop hurting, and niacin dilates the blood vessels in the brain, counteracting the constriction that apparently causes the pain.
So this morning I started getting "migraine sign", a particular vision defect where a spot in the middle of my visual field starts to flicker. Quick like a bunny I downed the feverfew, aspirin, and two niacin capsules. This is the first time I've taken all three at once. A few minutes later, I turned bright pink and began to tingle - the niacin was working. Then the feverfew and aspirin kicked in and I got severely nauseous for a few minutes.
But then I felt fine! Well, relatively, anyway. I spent the rest of the day with the vague hollow ache that tends to linger for a day after a bad migraine, but I never really experienced this migraine.
My thanks to our chiropractor, Dr. Bonnie Spatrisano of River View Chiropractic, for suggesting the niacin. It worked a treat!
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