This book is a compilation - the creative efforts of many with migraine.  Written works, art - 192 full colour pages - hardcover - this is a book you’ll probably want to have on hand to help people understand just how migraine impacts your life.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I did want to get the word out because you can get a deal if you order early.  You can get it for less than 72% of the retail cost - that’s $10 off the price of US$35.  Pre-order through World Metro Press before July 1st (Canada Day, of course) and you can get it for $25, and get a special matte dust jacket.  Sweet.

I hope I’ll be able to write a review soon.  I’m in the middle of a few weeks with almost no internet access - so thanks for your patience.  I’m just connecting long enough to get this special message out to you because I think this will be a valuable resource, and it is big news for the migraine world.  I think we’re going to see a book like we’ve never seen before.

Technorati Tags: Migraine Expressions

I thought a good starting point for conversation may be this question and answer time with Dr. Joseph Glenmullen from Harvard Medical School.  The article is over 3 years old now, but many of the points brought up are still very current.  The article mostly deals with those who have been diagnosed with depression, but the side effects can be similar no matter why you’re taking them.

Anything in the article that sounds familiar?  What problems have you had with antidepressants?  Or how have they helped?

An excerpt from the article:

If you tried to stop your antidepressant and couldn’t because of withdrawal symptoms, a good question to ask is: Are you caught in what I call the “antidepressant catch 22″? Antidepressant withdrawal symptoms like anxiety, depression, insomnia, and crying spells can mimic a patient’s original psychiatric condition. Countless patients have tried to lower the dose of their antidepressants and mistook these withdrawal symptoms for depressive relapse. Their doctors make the same mistake if they are not well informed about antidepressant withdrawal. When this happens, patients are needlessly put back on the drugs, often for years and despite severe side effects. In this “antidepressant catch-22,” patients are unaware that they were undergoing withdrawal rather than a return of their original psychiatric condition. The antidepressant catch-22 can be avoided by learning how to distinguish withdrawal symptoms from depressive relapse.

Read more…

Technorati Tags: antidepressants, Dr. Joseph Glenmullen

One problem with TMS is getting the device to point precisely to the right part of the brain.  The search is on for simpler, more accurate ways to keep symptoms at bay.  Some researchers are looking into using electrodes, and creating a smaller device that could more easily be used at home.

These new stimulators are called DC machines.  DC seems to have longer lasting results, and does not need to be positioned as precisely.  You can read more here.

To see how magnets can impact the brain, and hear more about the research being done, check out this video:

Technorati Tags: DC machines, TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

This is very much a world of its own because in many countries these drinks are not regulated the way other foods are.  Either that, or they’re simply marketed in such a way that you may not be getting quite what you expect.

This was recently brought to my attention in an email from Jackie from the UK.  Her daughter had sports induced migraine and was prescribed, with great success, something known as guarana.  Guarana is in quite a few drinks, especially energy drinks, sold around the world.

Take, for example, GURU.  On their website they write this about Guarana:  Today, the plant is known and used worldwide as a general tonic for the body and as a source of energy.  Its active component, guaranine, is proven to have tonifying and astringent properties.  It acts on the central nervous system to prevent fatigue and break down lactic acid from muscle stress.  It is also used in Europe and the United States to relieve headaches and rheumatic conditions.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  But what that summary doesn’t mention is the caffeine content.  The drink contains 125.5mg of caffeine - equal to almost 3.5 cans of Coke!  And where does the caffeine come from?  The humble guarana seed, which contains about 3x as much caffeine as the coffee bean.

On amazon.com, the entry for GURU says:  World’s First 100% Natural Energy Drink … Helps enhance physical stamina and increase alertness and vitality … Made with fruit juices and an active botanical complex of guarana, panax ginseng, ginkgo biloba and echinacea … no preservatives - no taurine - no artificial ingredients … All botanicals included in GURU are standardized, which guarantees their potency with scientific accuracy.

Without even getting into the caffeine for headache debate, the important thing here is to be aware what you’re drinking.  For all the hype about all-natural and botanical and so on, what you’re getting may or may not be healthy.  Yes, guarana may have health benefits, just like the coffee bean, but that doesn’t mean a lot of it is automatically good for you.

GURU is by far not the only one - many sports drinks contain caffeine, though not always that much (sometimes more).  Newest on the menu are the Starbucks energy drinks, also containing guarana.  BAWLS EXXTRA is also a newer drink on the market with guarana.

And that’s just a reference to caffeine - what about sugar, for example?  (In drinks like GURU, mix-1 and FRS it’s packed up in cane juice, syrup or sugar, as well as other juices).  Then there are special "herbal" ingredients - also usually unregulated.

Should you stay away from these products?  Well, that’s up to you.  But I do suggest that you know as much as possible what you’re drinking, and be cautious.  Every all-natural botanical organic substance is not necessarily going to help your body over the long term.

Article on guarana sales in Canada - Packing drinks with a punch

Technorati Tags: caffeine, energy drinks, guarana, GURU, sports drinks

IndoProCaf is a combination of indomethacin (a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory), caffeine, and prochlorperazine (for nausea most often).  It does seem to have an edge over some other solitary drugs.  In one study comparing IndoProCaf suppositories with sumatriptan suppositories, the combo drug seemed to come out as a clear winner.  This study makes some interesting points about how to measure results, by the way, if you’re interested.

Naturally, one good thing about IndoProCaf is that it fights nausea.  But, do you need all three ingredients every time?  That’s one of the questions of the combo drugs.

Have you tried IndoProCaf?  Do you find it better than some migraine-specific drugs?

Technorati Tags: IndoProCaf

No, it’s not that simple, but the connection needs to be investigated more.  We know there is a strong connection between migraine and sleep problems in adults.  Now we’re learning about the connection in children.

A recently published study involved 90 patients from age 5-19.  60 of the patients were diagnosed with migraine, the others had various types of headache.  56% of the migraine patients had sleep disordered breathing, as opposed to 30% of the other patients.

Dr Bradley V. Vaughn, a neurologist from the USA who was not involved in the study, made a good point: "Children with headache should be questioned about symptoms of sleep disorders because there’s a high incidence of them in this group"

Now, the incidence may not be so high in the general population.  What I didn’t mention was that these were patients who already reported sleep problems and headache.  The interesting point is that the percentage was so much higher in the migraineurs.  Especially those with chronic or severe migraine simply didn’t sleep as well as the other groups.

True, patients with migraine are more likely to nap.  Still, there is evidence that there is some underlying neurological problem that is triggering migraine and changing sleep patterns.

Other interesting things that were noticed:  bruxism (clenching or grinding teeth) was present in 50% of children with tension type headache.  Most of the children with sleep apnea were referred to an ear-nose-throat (ENT) specialist, and half of those children ended up with a tonsillectomy.  Most (80%) of those children had significantly fewer and less severe migraine attacks.  Interesting.

It’s not normal to do a polysomnography (a type of sleep test) for children with migraine.  Maybe it should be added to the normal tests given.  This link needs to be further investigated.

Read more on the study: AAN: Pediatric Headache Type Linked to Troubled Sleep, or read more about migraine in children.

Technorati Tags: bruxism, child headache, child migraine, migraine, sleep disorders

But what is Treximet (formerly Trexima)?  And is it worth all the hype?

Actually, I’ve written about Treximet several times before (here for example) - it’s been in the testing phase for a long time.  It’s a combination drug - containing sumatriptan succinate (Imitrex) and naproxen sodium (Aleve).  You can expect to see more drugs like this in the future, as Triptans such as sumatriptan go generic and companies look for new things to sell.

With the approval, I thought it would be a good time to summarize the good and the bad about this much talked about drug.

First, the good.  Tests have shown that it seems to work well.  Tests were done on a mostly female Caucasian group with migraine.  Results?  Noticeable relief from pain both short term (after 2 hours) and longer term (up to 24 hours).  And better relief than from either key ingredient alone, or a placebo.  In the end, Treximet seems to work a little faster and better than either drug alone.  Trexima uses something called RT Technology, which gets the ingredients into action in your body quickly.

The other benefit is that it also seems to help with nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound.

Sounds great, right?  Well, there are a few concerns about Treximet.  Most of these come from the fact that it’s a combination drug.

For example, sharp readers will notice that Treximet was compared to sumatriptan succinate and naproxen sodium in the clinic trials - each by itself, but not in combination.  With the expected price of the pills, we have a right to ask - is Treximet really that much better than just taking sumatriptan succinate and naproxen sodium together?  With the changes over the next few months, it looks like that option would be far cheaper.

Speaking of cost, will insurance companies be willing to cover Trexima prescriptions?

Another good question - do you need Trexima every time you feel you need to take an abortive medication?  In other words, might you want the sumatriptan alone sometimes, and would your doctor and insurance company allow you to have both?  And if you take Treximet in the first dose, do you need the combination again for the second dose? (Good discussion on that here)

Being a combination drug, you do get the potential for side effects from both ingredients - for example, increased risk of stroke and gastrointestinal problems (from the naproxen sodium - typical for this type of drug).

So, might Treximet help you?  Yes.  But proceed with caution to avoid both over-paying and over-drugging.  Keep informed on this discussion.  And feel free to join in with your comments.

Technorati Tags: Aleve, Imitrex, naproxen sodium, sumatriptan succinate, Trexima, treximet

Here are some of the featured posts:  my post from last week, Exercise and Migraine: 5 top tips for staying active, this excellent picture of what it means to "take baby steps" - Moving and exercising and migraine, challenges and tips in exercise: double-edged sword for migraineurs, more specific tips on grabbing those little moments of activity in 10 Ways for Migraineurs To Sneak In Some Exercise, and the canine helper in Walking Dog Helps Ease My Head Pains.  There are more, some related to exercise and some not.

Check it out, and see if you can get just a tiny bit more active!

Technorati Tags: exercise and migraine, Headache & Migraine Disease Blog Carnival, migraine

The one thing you need to know is that there is actually more than one search.  Of course, on the sidebar of this blog you can search only blog posts, dating back 3 and a half years.  But if you want to search the entire site - the blog and all the articles and archived newsletters, go to this page.  This is the ultimate search.  You can also go to the sitemap or sign up for the newsletter there.

Counting the blog posts and newsletters, there are around 550 pages of information on this site.  It’s a challenge to keep everything organized and find-able - hope this helps!

Try the new search right now…

Technorati Tags: migraine search

Many people with chronic headache or migraine think of exercise as the enemy.  In many people, exercise can actually bring on the headache they were trying to avoid.  Instead of imagining health and vitality, we think about throbbing temples and inflammation who knows where.

There’s no easy solution, but there are some ways to minimize the problem.  The truth is, you’re almost certainly going to be better off if you can get some exercise into your routine (not convinced exercise will help you?  Read about the benefits of exercise for headache here).  Here are my top 5 tips to help you stay active in spite of the migraine monster looking over your shoulder:

• Watch out for sudden changes:  Headaches and migraine attacks thrive on sudden changes.  This is a great rule of thumb to keep in mind.  For example, don’t jump into a new, strenuous program - start slow.  Make sure you warm up and cool down before and after exercise.  And when choosing something to do, don’t pick something that involves long periods of stopping - do something with steady activity (even if it’s only short).
• Sugar:  The energy your brain uses comes mostly from blood sugar.  Sudden rises and drops can cause problems.  Some people find it helpful to eat easily digestible foods one hour or more before exercise (ie fruit, muffin).  Some people also use glucose tablets before exercising, and find that they get fewer headaches.  (Read more about athletes and sugar before exercise here)
• Water:  The other important factor is hydration - be sure to drink plenty of water.  Many people have found that simply drinking more water fights their headaches quite a bit.  It’s an old tip, but it’s a good one!
• Exercise as a way of life:  For someone with chronic headaches, this may be the most important tip of all.  Many of us struggle with an exercise "program", or "going to the gym".  It’s hard to be consistent when you many days you really can hardly get out of bed because of the pain.  Instead, simply be more active on a regular basis.  Learn to squat properly to get something out of the cupboard.  Take the stairs when you can.  Learn how to exercise your arms while sitting in the office chair.  (An amazing source for tips is the book The Posture Prescription by Dr Arthur White and Kate Kelly)  This is one tip that could truly transform your life.
• Watch the pain:  I know, no pain no gain, right?  Well, when it comes to headache, that advice could be dangerous.  If you get a headache when you exercise, it could be a sign of something serious.  Listen to your pain.  If it’s something new, see a doctor right away.  Don’t keep exercising if you’re getting a worsening headache.  Stop and try something less strenuous, or do things in smaller chunks.

What about medication?  Well, our goal here really is to take less, not more.  But there are times when it may be worth it to take some medication if it means you can exercise more.  If you have chronic headache or migraine, it’s worth it to look at preventative medications.  Your doctor may suggest you take a painkiller before you exercise.  Common suggestions are Propranolol, Ergotamine tartrate, Indocin, or common anti-inflammatories (such as Advil).  But try the above suggestions before you start popping more pills.

Want to read more?  Click one of the links above, or read more about after exercise headaches, how to minimize the problem, and this post on Pilates and migraine.

Technorati Tags: exercise and headache, exercise and migraine, exercise induced headache, exercise induced migraine