Do you ever wonder what you’re missing when it comes to healing your migraines?  Is there some mineral or supplement that would just magically dissolve your migraines so you could go on living your hectic life?

Well, there isn’t such a supplement, although zinc and copper come close.  There is no single pill that is the solution to migraine.  But there are two ways to stop migraine that are so profound, and so important, and so effective when carried out, that it’s a little goofy we don’t pay more attention to them. The first solution is quite simple, the second solution is not simple, but crucial to healing migraine.

Folk wisdom says: stay hydrated, and get plenty of rest

Think about the basic maxims of Folk Medicine wisdom around migraine.  When people hear that you have a migraine, they will tell you to stay hydrated and get plenty of rest.  If they don’t get migraine themselves, these people are likely to be dismissed as naive for thinking it is that simple.  But what if that wisdom is right on point, and exactly what we need to really hear?

How many of us are actually willing to truly hydrate and rest when we get a migraine – or Goddess forbid, before? If my experience is any barometer, migraineurs tend to not get fully on board with these two important choices. Instead, most migraineurs will drink a token mount of water – nowhere near the amount needed to counterbalance the state of dehydration or coffee consumption.  And rest?  It sounds like just another fantastical idea that just isn’t plausible.  After all, most migraineurs can’t fall asleep due to insomnia, or can’t stay asleep because of the headache that crops up in the morning.

Yet we all would agree that hydration and rest are important, vitally important.  There’s only one problem: they’re both a form of self-regulation.  That means they require that we tune in to our bodies, and heed the body’s actual call for these things, rather than continuing our frenetic busy lives, drinking diuretics like coffee to stop migraine, desperately reaching for pills, maybe drinking a few glasses of water, or taking a tiny break to lay down for a second and take a few deep breaths.

In actuality, during this token “rest”, the person is not resting at all. Instead, they’re frantically searching their mind for a way to stop the migraine.  All the while their stress level is off the roof as they brace for the moment of doom when the migraine will literally FORCE them to take a break (rest).

No wonder the REAL potential for water and being restful to help us heal our migraines are never realized.

Some solutions are SO SIMPLE that when a person is suffering, they will dismiss it as an option for relief.  This is because we live in a technocratic society in which high-tech solutions offered by doctors are seen as superior to folk medicine solutions.  Another reason we dismiss these options is because migraine is a very complex disease, and it seems unfathomable that something simple could address something so complex. 

Water – and more water

By the time a migraine is on its way, or is full-blown, the liver and kidneys are already in a state of overwhelm.  The blood pressure is quite low, the blood vessels are slack, the blood cells are sticky, there is a buildup of ammonia in the blood, the breathing is shallow so there is little oxygen getting into the blood, and the blood volume is also low.  What’s the best way to help support every single one of these functions?  Water.  Water will help the body eliminate chemical toxins and ammonia buildup by flushing the liver and kidneys.  It will raise blood pressure by raising blood volume and will thin the sticky blood, which will in turn help to improve circulation and get oxygen to the brain.

The key is to drink enough water (about 4-5 pints), and to be able to keep it down.  By the time a migraine has started, the person is likely to start to feel nausea.  This means they will not feel like filling their stomach with copious amounts of water.  There will be an aversion to drinking enough water. 

The aversion is worth getting over.  The nausea factor may mean that initially, you will only be able to get 2 pints down. You don’t want to drink all 4 at once if it will cause you to throw it back up.  You can take a break for 20-30 minutes while the body absorbs the water before drinking another 2 pints.

If you caught your migraine in the beginning stages, it’s likely the pain level has gone down or the migraine is gone after the first 2 pints.  This is not a reason to not drink more water, because it may creep back in.  Make a point to continue to drink the additional 2 pints if you didn’t drink all 4 initially.

When you pee, it’s common for the pee to be hot.  When a migraine is stopped with water, somehow the cooling water eliminates a large amount of heat from the system.

Stopping a migraine in this way feels miraculous.  When I had migraines, I was able to get rid of quite a few of them with this method.  Each time I would be amazed that it was so simple to just drink more water.  Yet each time I got another migraine, I experienced aversion to drinking that much water.

While this option may not work 100% of the time (most methods don’t), it is an extremely valuable, simple, and quite effective way to get rid of a migraine, especially if you do this early on. Try it, don’t dismiss it! You’ll be glad you did.

To read part 2 of this blog post, click here.