cactus
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posted
Reading some articles on a correlation between low Vit D and migraines...
Has anyone here linked their migraines to low levels of Vit D?
And if so, has raising your Vit D levels significantly reduced your migraines?
Thanks, Cactus
Editing to say that there is an interesting article on this topic at medscape, but in posting the link, it says one must be a member to view the article (when using the link from here).
However, I found the full article by googling "vit d deficiency headache" ... not sure why it won't let me post the link successfully, but if you are interested, you can do the same search for the medscape article and likely see the whole piece.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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posted
My daughter has an intractible headache. I did have her vitamin D levels checked and they were low. Supplementing D did help her feel better in general and seemed to help her respond to treatment more, but it did not make her headache go away.
We are still looking for a miracle to finally get rid of her headache and nausea.
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cactus
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Sparrow, I too am looking for a headache miracle.
Have you re-checked her Vit D levels? I found that once I'd gotten mine up to normal, about a year later (now) the levels fell back to, well, next to nothing.
Could be worth a re-check, if it's been some time for your daughter.
What did help me - for a while - was babesia treatment. I had both microti and duncani.
But the headaches and cranial neuralgia have returned with increasing frequency of late, and I'm not having any of the other babs symptoms.
Just realized this morning that it could be related to my extremely low Vit D levels. Not sure, but maybe.
I hope your daughter finds relief soon. This is no way to live. Life is too short for these headaches to rule our days.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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feelfit
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Sparrow and Cactus,
What kind of HA is this? I am in hell right now with HA. My eyes are swollen to little slits and the pain is global from the back of the neck around to ears and behind my eyes.
I have had a HA to some degree everyday for 2 years....but this is the worst ever. My Vit D levels are low. I just found out have not supplemented yet.
No pill touches my headache though...from narcotics to NSAID's. Just hot and cold packs help a little.
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cactus
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quote:Originally posted by feelfit:
No pill touches my headache though...from narcotics to NSAID's. Just hot and cold packs help a little.
Right there with you. These headaches are insane.
Mine sounds a bit different from yours - mine is always only on the right side, and can extend down the neck to the (right) shoulder and upper back. Sometimes down the right arm.
I have a lot of trigeminal and cranial neuralgia issues, even without the headache, always right-sided.
Seems to work in concert with muscle spasms to keep it all going - migraine triggers spasms trigger migraine and so on.
What helps? Have tried it all. Nothing fixes it, but some things give a bit of relief:
- Lying with that side of the face pressed into an ice pack
- Icy Hot or Biofreeze smeared literally all over the affected area (believe me, this makes one's hair look particularly attractive, to add to the overall he!!ish experience)
- Butalbital (pain killer) takes the edge off
- And my latest combo: Axert (migraine med), plus Valium (for the spasm), and Advil for inflammation
Very anxious to see if supplementing with Vit D helps overall, but it will take time to bring the D levels back up to normal - ooooh, for quick relief.
Feelfit, if you're going to start Vit D supps soon, let's keep in touch and compare notes to see if it helps.
Did you manage to find the full text of the article above? If not, I could post the entire article here.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I am sorry for all of the patients that have headaches. I wish I could banish every one.
I have not had my daughter's D level checked lately, so don't know her numbers. I just give her a cod liver oil pill every other day to maintain it. When we first started supplementing,I gave her one every day and she was very sick from the herx. I backed down to about 1/week and so on.
I thought she was doing good and didn't give her any for a while and noticed she reverted to more problems, so settled on the every other day dose.
Benadryl helps my headaches when I get one, but they don't help her's. If you have not ever tried benadryl, I encourage you to try it. It needs to be just the plain capsules--not pills that have a decongestant added. It was one of the protocols (although she got it in IV form) that was given to her when she went to a headache hospital.
She is always worse when there is a barometeric change and I know that is always a trigger for any kind of pain issues. Wish some one could figure out a way to balance that out.
She has always done best on babs treatment, but relapses soon also. I think bart is also in the mix for her on the headaches. She did a round of the homeopathic bart remedies over a year ago and that helped alot for a longer period of time than the main stream meds we have used.
Sometimes Head On helps her. The blue Head On works the best. You get it at Walgreen's.
I hope someone can find a solution soon. Too many people are suffering.
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feelfit
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posted
my head hurts too much too read anything very long right now Cactus.
Will try to Google later.
Yes! to the tiger balm, icy hot, etc. everywhere. My rice filled tube sock turbans are cute too. I wear them to my appts and sometimes forget to take them off before going in...lots of looks! They have just become a part of me, never w/o one tied around my head.
What kind of D are you going to use?
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feelfit
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posted
Posting at the same time Sparrow. I try Benadryl, but only one tab. Does two work better?
I also get a little relief from Klonopin, if only in the sense that it allows me to sleep a little.
Cod liver oil for D, have read that the fish oils are the best source.
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posted
If you have never tried lidocaine patches you might see if you could get a script for some of those. They are expensive if you don't have insurance, but they are big and you cut them to fit the area you need. That was also one of the things they tried at the headache hospital she went to. It did not help her, but some patients got relief with those. She recently had shingles and the patches helped a great deal with that pain.
There is a lidocaine nasal spray for migraines. We have never tried that, but I assume the doctors don't think that will work for my daughter or we would have had added that to the list of meds we have tried.
Marjoram essential oil has muscle relaxing properties. It doesn't help my daughter's headache, but it does help some other pain issues.
My daughter's headache starts at the neck, goes over the scalp and is frontal also.
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posted
Two benadryl are okay. They usually make people sleepy. I buy generic at Target, Wal-Mart, or Walgreen's for anywhere between $5 and $7 for a bottle of 100.
My daughter takes Klonopin also and that does help.
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cactus
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LLMD called in 50,000IU to take once weekly for a month.
Plus 2,000 IU daily of D3.
I can't remember the brand I've got, but I know it's D3. Ordered it from Vitacost.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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cactus
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Sparrow, thanks for the benadryl tip - I'll try that too.
And some of your other ideas as well.
Where is your daughter in the TBD treatment spectrum? Has that helped at all, yet?
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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She is currently on Bicillin which has definitely been the best antibiotic treatment for her so far, but has not been a miracle cure for her.
I thought babs had reared its ugly head this summer, so I had some left over malarone and zith and started her on that. She got so sick we backed off after 2 weeks. She was a little better after that, but got shingles again and did 2 rounds of Valtrex. She still seems to have some residual pain from that.
She does not have insurance right now, so I am trying to decide what we are going to do next. We were going out of state for treatment and besides the expense, the trip is just so difficult.
I was so impressed with the bart homeopathics and so I am doing more investigation in that area. There is a doctor here that is willing to do biopuncture that one of the blogs talks about, so that may be next. He mentioned it last year and I really did not understand the concept until recently. He has done it on other patients and has warned that it packs a wallop and to be prepared for a king sized herx. That is why I have been reluctant to start. We thought she might need to be a little more stable before we give that a go.
He actually made a preparation for her like the AI stuff that every one talks about. He made that last year before I started reading about AI. That also packs a wallop and we have not been able to get up to the dose he wants her on.
No one thing has worked, so we do alot of different things now to cover all of our bases. On another thread, someone talked about homeopathy changing the terrain. Killing the bugs has not solved all of my daughter's problems, so I am looking into changing the terrain.
As we all know there is no easy solution and there doesn't seem to be one-size-fits-all protocol.
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CD57
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What is biopuncture, isn't that just like acupuncture?
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CD57
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What is biopuncture, isn't that just like acupuncture?
Posts: 3528 | From US | Registered: Apr 2007
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Not exactly. A drop of the patient's blood is added to different homeopathic remedies and then injected into acupuncture points. The ones I have been reading about use Sanum products. The doctor I have consulted with uses Heel products. He said he usually starts off with Traumeel I believe, but he was open to using the Sanum. I think that muscle testing is done first to determine what is best for the patient.
I know it sounds bizarre, but I read an amazing account about it.
Posts: 177 | From God's Grace | Registered: Apr 2007
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posted
Low D usually means low 25D. For many lymies that's the infection depleting 25D by converting it to 1,25D. That leads to an excess of 1,25D, one of the symptoms of which is headache.
Once I avoided D intake and light exposure, my near decade-long headache all but went away within a few weeks.
The key is to get both 25D and 1,25D tested. If 1,25D is not also low, it can be the culprit.
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cactus
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dguy, I've seen the 1,25D issue mentioned before... So is this a separate test?
Will have to go look at my results to see if that was checked as well.
Thanks.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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cactus - yup, two separate tests. Usually only 25D is tested because that test is easier/cheaper, and because in most non-lymies it's an adequate proxy for 1,25D. But that doesn't work for lymies since the normal conversion of 25D to 1,25D is disregulated.
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cactus
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Thanks, dguy.
I will doublecheck, and cross my fingers that LLMD has already ordered both tests.
Would hate to be adding the problem by supplementing more D.
Thanks for the heads up.
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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I made sure both were tested and my daughter's levels were both so low they were almost non existant. That is why she herxed when we first started supplementing D3.
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Shosty
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Cactus: all your remedies are the ones our daughter used with some success, at a desperate time.
I just want to add that it sounds like you might have hemiplegic migraines. Have you heard that from any doctors? If you do, then you might not want to take Axert or any other Triptan, or check into it further.
Most neurologists make a big deal about this (to avoid stroke) but I have seen recent studies that triptans may, in fact, be safe for people with hemiplegic migraines and/or aura. But good to check.
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cactus
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Shosty, thanks.
I have been putting off making an appt with the neuro because, well, my many experiences with them prior to Lyme diagnosis were so unproductive.
But LLMD wants me to see one, so it's time to bite the bullet, I think.
What finally helped your daughter? I hope she found a solution to the suffering?
-------------------- �Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?� - A.A. Milne Posts: 1987 | From No. VA | Registered: May 2005
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