Comments on: Migraine and Salt?

By: Russell Rockefeller

Russell Rockefeller — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:56:07 +0000

I have been suffering with migraines for years and have been very aware of the fact that I crave salt and sugar during a migraine episode. Recently, I was munching pepperoni sticks during an attack and my Wife sarcastically suggested that I may as well just eat pure salt. She was kidding but I realized that this might be just what the doctor ordered!
I took 1/4 tsp (600 mg) and shoved it down the hatch. It tasted awful like the sea but eureka it worked beautifully. I actually felt the migraine melt off. For safe measure I took a couple of aspirins and pounded back some coffee.

By: Ilzai

Ilzai — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:14:01 +0000

I have eaten a big mac meal (or similar) to block migrane attacks for at least 15 times by now, and it has worked every time. Its not that easy to down a hamburger when on the verge of migrane-vomiting, but the salty fries have this miraculous quality that allows sthem to be the tastiest thing even when in this awfull condition…

By: tle

tle — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:57:40 +0000

I tried the salty snack this morning after waking up with a worse migraine than when I went to bed. I don’t eat a lot of salt or salty foods, but I had some Parmesan and Garlic pita ships in the pantry! I ate two servings of pita chips, (one serving is equal to 350mg of sodium) drank water and used the freezer towel on my head for about 10 minutes. I still have the migraine an hour later, but it is tolerable and I think the salty snack trick helped! I have also often drank Gatorade at room temp. to help my migraines and it seems to help a lot.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:15:02 +0000

I experienced what I thought was a miracle one night while at work. I worked 2nd shift and when I went into work, I already had the beginnings of a headache. This was before Imitrex, which I usually take now.

My migraine worsened, but I had an office I could go to, turn out the lights, and put my head down on my desk. At some point in time I decided to try and eat something, went to the vending machine and selected a bag of Frito’s.

I really wasn’t hungry, but I noticed as I lay next to the bag of chips, my pain started to ease. The aroma seemed to have a positive effect on my headache. I continued with just breathing very near the bag, and my migraine was completely gone within approximately 45 minutes.

Believing that experience was a fluke, for the longest time I did not attempt to use a bag of frito’s for my headache. About 2 weeks ago I bought a six pack Frito’s snack pack to see if they would have any impact. The good news is that on 2 occasions, breathing in the aroma from one of those bags has reduced the pain. The first occasion was over a week ago, when the pain subsided, but the headache did not go away. These bags are smaller than the one I got from the vending machine, and as I feel better, I eat the chips, so I don’t know if there is a direct correlation between effectiveness and chip quantity. On that first occasion I did not open a second bag to see if the migraine would cease.

Today, I have another migraine and I have a bag of freshly opened Frito’s. I take some deep breaths from the bag, every 3-5 minutes or so, and there is some reduction in pain. I am going to open a second bag if I feel the pain is continuing to subside, and I run out of chips.

So, I don’t know if Salt is really the answer, it may be the aroma from spices in the bag of Frito’s. I will report back the results of today’s experiment. 2/23/2011

By: Charlee

Charlee — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:43:55 +0000

Found this completely randomly while researching my migraines. I can also confirm – completely anecdotally, of course – that a hit of salt mid-migraine (for me it’s usually a few bags of plain Hula Hoops) almost always reduces the pain to a more manageable level. I have a very low sodium diet the rest of the time.

By: Joy

Joy — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 13:49:22 +0000

Glad to have been of help. It was new to me too! There’s always something to learn.

By: Patty

Patty — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:59:02 +0000

I just found this post when I was doing a search for salt and migraines. I have suffered from migraines for years. Recently, I discovered, quite accidentally, that eating salty sunflower seeds seemed to relieve my migraine pain considerably. I can’t quite figure out the why of it but I figured it must be from the salt. That’s what prompted me to do a search. Very interesting post. Thanks for posting this. I can’t find a lot of info on this.

By: Susan

Susan — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:07:06 +0000

Great post! As we all know salt is really bad for our body if we take more than is recommended then it can definatelycause bad migraines as that is what used to happen to me when I was a salt lover…but I hate the stuff now and my migraines are much better for it.

By: admin

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:27:12 +0000

Thanks “Snudge”.

It’s good to know there COULD be a mechanism – and it’s understood that this is just your thoughts of a possibility, rather than definitive research.

Tell you what – I’d love for anyone who feels a migraine coming on to just give this tip a try and see if your attack aborts. Just a SMALL salty snack. Not a regular diet of salt.

Hope it works for someone, and if you try it, please comment here whether it works or not!

By: Snudge

Snudge — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:12:29 +0000

With a rather outdated PhD in biochemistry and physiology I read this
article with interest and instinctively feel you could be on to
something here.

My studies were a long time ago, but I wanted to try and come up with a
mechanism whereby this could happen. So here goes.

As far as I remember, the brain autoregulates its blood flow (preserves
it even when pressure drops). This is useful as when the peripheral
circulation is in shock, the brain still works!! Likewise the kidney
does the same so that we can still excrete. These are the ‘normal’
scenarios but in ‘disease’ states, cerebral and renal function can fail.
So when we are talking about possible mechanisms in migraine, we have to assume that things are transiently abnormal.

As far as I recall, in migraine we are talking about dilated throbbing
blood vessels in the brain, so autoregulation has briefly been thrown
out of whack. The blood vessels have lost their tension. The ions in the
body responsible for blood vessel tension are Ca++ (but there are also
lots of other molecules involved like angiotensin and Kinins and
prostaglandins, nitric oxide etc to name but a few). Sodium and
Potassium regulate electrical balance across cells in blood vessel wall
via a Na+/K+ pump powered by ATP. It is true to say that Na+ in the
blood drags water with it so maybe a delay in salt regulation
accompanied by changes in other vasodilator mechanisms could be happening.

When you eat a salty snack, the supra-optic nucleus in the hypothalamus
reduces its production of ADH and effectively dilutes out the salt to re
establish osmotic balance.

All these mechanisms have a ‘time constant’ ie how fast are they able to
be engaged so maybe this is important. As an example of what I’m talking
about, think of after you’ve eaten a meal: lots of us keep eating for
too long after we are physiologically full because there is a delay in
the brain’s registration of ‘satiety’. The more sensible amongst us (not
me) can see how much they’ve eaten and stop, but others, because they
don’t feel full yet carry on eating!!!!!

The problem with trying to evaluate what is happening is that processes
are too multifactorial, but there could be something in it.

To re-iterate the obvious, we’re not talking about a hefty and regular
increase in salt intake, just a salty snack and see what happens.

“Snudge” PhD