Migraine and detox

I recently met up with Sandy Halliday, a graduate from the same nutrition college as me. We obviously soon started discussing the different routes we’d taken since our course finished.

While I have specialized in migraine, Sandy’s research and practice has focused on detox diets.

But as we compared notes it became obvious that there was much common ground, as a detoxification diet can be a great tool in the fight against migraine. Here are a few reasons why:

• Many complementary therapists have related migraine to sluggish liver function, and the liver is the body’s main detoxification organ, so it needs to be functioning well.
• If your liver and other organs of elimination can’t cope with the toxins in our diet and environment, you will suffer!
• Years of unhealthy eating can lead to indigestion and a toxic colon.
• A toxic colon can, in turn, lead to poor absorption of nutrients such as magnesium, so often deficient in migraine sufferers.
• A good detox diet will exclude most of the common dietary migraine triggers, but will include nutrient rich foods, many of which are rich in magnesium, and which support the liver’s detoxification processes.
• The liver eliminates spent hormones, but if it cannot do this efficiently old hormones may build up, resulting in a hormone imbalance. Many migraines are “hormonal”.

While we may all be aware of the benefits of a detox diet, with our modern life-style and the practicalities of following a sensible detox plan, good intentions often fall by the wayside, and no migraine sufferer needs anything that will cause them extra stress.

So Sandy has designed a plan that combines being safe and nutritionally sound, with being enjoyable and one you’ll easily stick to – even with family meals to plan.  Learn more by visiting Sandy’s detox site.

Sometimes it’s so hot and sticky at night (well OK, not that often in the UK) that you can feel a migraine threatening because of the heat. Here’s my secret weapon.

This is a ‘device’ I use myself and can personally endorse both the product and the customer service from the company.

My migraines are largely under control now, but when I get the occasional one I have a secret weapon that makes it easier to keep a cool head at night. The Chillow® is a “personal cooling solution” that doesn’t use electricity or refrigeration and it’s brilliant – for times when I have a migraine, or any other time when it’s too hot to sleep comfortably. For example: hot flushes, night sweats, eczema, fevers, headaches, sunburn, muscle/joint pain, sporting injuries and many other conditions.

The Chillow is a unique pad, only two centimetres thick, and needs activating just once by filling it with tap water, which is then fully absorbed into the patented foam core. Once activated it will keep on working, so it’s always ready for use when needed. Unlike gel and ice packs, Chillow does not need refrigeration and is always cool not cold, dry not wet, soft not hard.

The science behind the technology is simple, functional, versatile, enjoyable, unique, maintenance free. It depends on combining specialist materials, fluids and the laws of thermodynamics to create a dry, powerless, thermo-regulating and memory foam effect.

This combination of the right materials and an ingenious design means the Chillow stays at room temperature, which is always cooler than your body. It absorbs heat from your body and releases it into the air around you, whilst remaining pleasantly cool against the skin. So it provides comfort without power, pollution, moisture or maintenance.

Being cold OR hot is uncomfortable so an attractive feature of the Chillow is that while it keeps the user cool, it never makes them cold because it acts as a heat sink and radiator all in one.

Chillow absorbs heat, and then radiates it away from the user continuously, much like a radiator in a car, which works to keep a car’s engine cool by using water to help dissipate heat to the air. Hot fluid enters the radiator, loses its heat and the cooled water travels back through the system to begin the process again.

Likewise, the Chillow continually absorbs body heat and discharges the absorbed heat back to the surrounding environment. It consistently feels cool as the consumer is always warmer than the product. Unlike most other cooling products this technology is refreshing – not overly cold, wet or uncomfortable.

Before I’m happy to recommend a product I look for features such as quality, design, reliability, and durability. All of which Chillow offers. Another important point in their sale message is that there are no hidden or additional costs. After you have purchased your Chillow – you don’t need anything but tap water for it to work.

To keep it ready for use, without having to guess when your next migraine – or unpredictable summer heat-wave – will strike, just leave it in a cool place. Chillow is always ready to consistently deliver cooling, soothing comfort when you need it.

I’m delighted with my purchase and whole-heartedly recommend it to you.

For more drug-free migraine relief tips, see my Natural Migraine Alternatives ebook.

Stop Your Migraines!

If you found this post interesting please subscribe to my free monthly, Health and Well-being Newsletter. You’ll received a free migraine mini-course revealing some little known dietary triggers for migraine.

However, it seems not. Check out this excerpt from an article by Janis Graham:

Your Bedtime Routine
If you watch TV or read to “unwind” before bed, maybe you shouldn’t. Some 80 percent of women with chronic migraines end the day this way, research shows. These activities stimulate brain wave activity, making it harder to sleep, says Anne H. Calhoun, M.D., a clinical associate professor of neurology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You’re conditioning the brain to remain awake, she says, so you may be waking during the night without knowing it — and disrupted sleep is associated with headache frequency.

What to do

Skip (or TiVo) Letterman, turn in at the same time every night, and don’t eat for four hours before bed. Migraine sufferers who learned how to change their bedtime habits had a 40 percent overall improvement in headache frequency and intensity, a recent study found.

So there’s something counter-intuitive, and free, to try. For other helpful tips, you can read the rest of Janis Graham’s excellent article here.

Stop Your Migraines!

You’ll find more ways to minimise the risk of headache in my ebook.

Why not buy it now? When you have your next migraine you’ll wish you had bought it!

Is this a cause or an effect? After all, you hardly feel like exercise if all you want to do is lie in a darkened room with an ice-pack.

But a study in “Headache: the journal of head and face pain”  shows that aerobic exercise can reduce migraine pain.

It stands to reason really – and we’ve seen in another Natural Migraine Alternatives blog post than oxygen can help migraine.  So head on over to the article and read more.

This morning I attended a fascinating talk by Adam Shaw, a qualified health consultant with over 16 years of experience in the health care field – and a great sense of humour.

Adam held us spell-bound for a couple of hours with the story of his life-journey, and introduced us to his Walk Innovation sessions.

What has this got to do with migraine? Well, we all know that walking is good for you. Instinctively you may feel, or have experienced, that talking things over is good for you. What may come as more of a surprise to some people is that laughing is great therapy too – releasing serotonin, often referred to as the “feel-good” hormone.

So combining walking, talking and laughing is absolutely amazing for you – and this is precisely what Adam Shaw’s Walk Innovation sessions will do.

If your migraines could be caused by unresolved issues and stresses in your life, Adam’s workshops could be just what you’re looking for.

Other approaches to stress reduction can be found in my ebook.

I’ve been putting up a series of free subscriber emails giving information on migraine and food intolerance, one of the migraine topics that attracted the most interest, according to my website statistics.

While you are on that site, do have a look at the extensive range of other topics covered in my ebook.

Subscribe, for free, at : www.StopTheMigraineMadness.com