Of the millions of headache and migraine sufferers, most are stuck with the choices of medications or living with the pain. You could be prescribed to use pain-killers of many types, bizarre meds, opiates and pseudo-narcotics, even anti depressants are used! Relief from taking drugs, even when achieving reduction or cover-up of pain, is only temporary. Side-effects are often harsh and can be health-destructive. Just going to bed for a day and taking medication may seem like the only way to temporarily cope when a migraine attacks. And then suffer through the same thing again when the next migraine comes!
Since I've moved back to LA, here is the actual story of yet another typical migraine cure case that is illustrative of what happens. She is a busy professional with an often stressful job, lots of responsibility, and commonly long hours that interfere with a dependable sleep and eating schedule. She has suffered for decades with migraines, getting them every month for all the years. And every time she has to suffer with severe head pain that her job would beg her to not have. She had tried many things, and numerous chiropractors had adjusted her regularly, but the migraines always returned, and her adjustments rarely "held" for long. I applied exactly what is spoken of here, and now for the first time in decades, she has gone months without a migraine. How did we achieve the previously unachievable?
We fixed this miserable problem by identifying that there are causes at the bottom of headache and migraine pain that can be corrected. My successful treatment of chronic migraine and headache sufferers who had tried for years everything known to medical science (and failed) and even sometimes chiropractic, and now are completely free of headaches shows that two interlocking factors are the most common causes.
Factor One is the low adrenal (and blood-sugar handling deficient) condition. Worn-down adrenals (the “stress-relating glands”) is frequently a key factor in causing the onset of headaches or migraines. When the adrenals get worn out, a number of critical hormones become deficient. One of the important hormones is the sugar-boosting ("Glucocorticoids") hormone that keeps the body's fuel (blood sugar) in normal levels between meals. It keeps blood sugar from dropping to below normal blood levels. The brain is the largest consumer of blood sugar in your body, and when it is low, your brain really suffers. Blood sugar is brain fuel. Headache and tiredness are two of the most common of the many possible symptoms of crashes in blood sugar. Common (non-migraine) headaches also often have a low-adrenal/low blood sugar cause. Adrenals are worn out in numerous and combined ways (emotional stress, sugar, alcohol, carbohydrate dietary imbalances, other pain and injury, even familial factors passed through the mother to baby, to name only some of them.) In migraine cases the adrenal problem is so severe that the person typically has "ligament stretch syndrome" (you can read our paper on this subject).
Factor Two is compression of the nerves at top of the neck and base of the skull, which control the amount of blood flow to the brain. This compression of nerves ("subluxation" or "short circuits") at the top vertebral level (Cervical One and its connection to the head and skull) is typically found in the migraine or headache patient. Testing will reveal the pinched nerve, even though the person may have learned to live with it and take it for granted. The nerves which control arterial diameter, when pinched, shut down the amount of blood flow to your brain, causing your brain to starve for fuel and vital nutrients. Tiny misalignment of the upper cervical joints (only a thumbnail’s thickness in size) can result in this diminished blood supply to your brain. Accidents, injuries, stress, postural distortions are a few of the common causes of such a misalignment, called an upper cervical subluxation.
If you have these two factors coinciding: diminished blood flow to your brain, and diminished blood sugar in that reduced blood flow, your brain gets slammed in a double-whammy. There’s not enough blood and not enough brain-fuel in the diminished blood getting there. Then your brain's nerve cells take it really hard. This starts your headache or your migraine. These two factors are seldom both identified, and seldom both effectively corrected. But fixing both when present is essential to cure the actual causes of this problem.
The correction of these two causes need to both be done:
1. A careful skilled chiropractic analysis of your neck, and precise adjustments to relieve the nerve pressure and restore full arterial blood delivery to your brain. Almost always this is at the top of the neck, and often takes the form of a misalignment of the skull with the first neck vertebra "occipital sideslip". This skull misalignment which also pinches the base of the brain ("brainstem") and thus the top of your spinal cord can wreak holy havoc on your body's well-being. To top it off, I have found that many times chiropractors are not trained or able to correct this exact problem and the severe short circuits of nerves it represents. When your neck/skull connection is a mess, other back areas may be too.
2. A careful evaluation of your adrenal and blood sugar function and an adrenal repair and recovery program needs to be implemented. This program can often take the form of dietary education so that the person is not continually sabotaging the adrenals by avoidable stress, improper food intake, drink or smoke. Very importantly the use of the correct effective nutritional supplements can be the turning point for migraine or headache elimination. The best adrenal repair supplements, including non-hormonal glandular extracts, are often a crucial make-or-break part of your migraine program. Many supplements for blood sugar or adrenals are borderline ineffective; a very few are brilliantly effective. Professional experience in this area of nutrition pays off.
We make sure to correct both of these causes of headache and migraine problems when present. The change in the quality of your life is generally dramatic, and typically other symptoms that you have considered unrelated to the headaches or migraines and often thought of as "incurable" also just "clear up". Why? Because repairing your adrenals and unpinching a major circuit board of the spine bring a restoration of electrical flow (nerve-wise) and of energy and hormonal balance that cause you to have far-reaching improvements. Those are the added benefits that you didn't expect. What a change to have beneficial and helpful side-benefits of treatment for headache and migraine, in place of ill side-effects of drug treatment for them!
Taking destructive drugs for your headaches or migraines is just the booby prize when you have a problem that could be CORRECTED AND ACTUALLY FIXED, NATURALLY.
Note: To achieve greater understanding of the subjects covered in this paper, you can also read: Adrenal Gland Problems, Ligament Stretch Syndrome, Subluxation and Degeneration. For a global understanding, watch: Total Health, Glands, and Energy and Blood Sugar.