Migraines? A New Approach Without Drugs

I receive a newsletter regularly from APFA (American Fitness Professionals and Associates) where I took classes for one of my certificates. They ran this article recently and I thought I would share it.  I have worked with several people that have  migraines, and while we have made changes in their food choices with remarkable success, this is something additional to integrate into lifestyle changes.

(Reuters Health) - Regular aerobic exercise worked just as well as relaxation therapy or the antiepileptic drug topiramate in preventing migraine headaches in a Swedish trial.

"This non-pharmacological approach may therefore be an option for the prophylactic treatment of migraine in patients who do not benefit from or do not want daily medication," wrote Dr. Emma Varkey and her colleagues from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg, in the journal Cephalalgia.

Varkey's team randomly assigned their subjects to one of three regimens for three months: aerobic exercise on a stationary bike (40 minutes three times per week), a standard form of relaxation therapy or daily topiramate.

Previous studies have shown that relaxation therapy and topiramate are both effective for migraine prevention, the investigators note in their paper.

The 91 women in the trial were all from a single headache clinic in Sweden. They were between 18 and 65 years old, had neurologist-diagnosed migraine, with or without aura, and got headaches two to eight times per month.

All three treatments reduced the frequency of some women's migraine attacks by as much as three quarters, although the average reduction was more modest.

In an email to Reuters Health, Varkey admitted that she was a bit surprised by the small between-group differences. "Topiramate is a drug of first choice which has shown great effects in studies. It was a bit surprising and very interesting that the change in number of migraine attacks was almost similar in all three groups," she said.

"The only parameter where topiramate was better compared with exercise and relaxation was the reduction of pain intensity," Varkey added. "On the other hand, the non-pharmacological options were free from adverse events and the exercise group increased oxygen uptake, which is very positive."

None of the women in the relaxation group or exercise group reported side effects, but eight women (33%) in the topiramate group did and three withdrew from the study as a result. The most commonly reported side effects of the drug included numbness or tingling, fatigue, depressed mood, vertigo and constipation.

Finding that exercise is not inferior to topiramate as a prophylactic measure is "of great value," the researchers note in their report, because patients often seek non-pharmacological options for migraine.

"From a wider health-based perspective, it should be stressed that patients with migraine are less physically active than the general population, and that exercise has positive effects in terms of general well-being and the prevention of disease," they added.

There will be more studies done, of course, but I found this quite interesting - especially since the results were so positive WITHOUT DRUGS.   Studies and discoveries like this one are not usually found on the nightly news, nor do doctors always stay on top of this non-drug alternative treatment.

(I should add that two people I know were previous migraine victims until  "cured" simply because they quit drinking sugar-free diet coke, and sugar-free phudes.  (I call it phude because it is more chemical than real food. )  Artificial sweeteners may seem like a great idea but they cause a lot of problems because they are toxic.  It has also been proven that people do NOT lose weight by drinking diet sodas.)

If you know of anyone suffering with migraines, please send this along to them via whatever social media you use.  News like this deserves to get out there to people who need it!  There is a link at the way bottom of my blog to send this out to your friends.