Beware Of Foolish Advices Regarding Migraines

You’ve read the good advice, or at least the advice that has been know to work. But how many times have you gotten advice on how to treat a migraine that, well, gave you a migraine? Some advice making the rounds almost sounds like jokes, or at least some kind of fiction. But the following are actual migraine treatments that people like you and me have received from friends, family, co-workers and strangers.

A man who had been suffering headaches for decades went to see a headache specialist in the 60s and was advised to start dating younger women. Not just younger women, mind you, but younger women of the kind that you don’t meet in bars. Nice younger women. Okay, well maybe that shouldn’t quite qualify as one of the worst pieces of migraine advice of all time. It’s certainly not as bad as:

Buy a razor and dig out that nerve bundle over your eye that's causing all your freaking pain! Yeah, that would definitely qualify as bad advice. In the first place it would hurt like you know what. In the second place, it would probably make your head hurt worse, not make it feel better.

This next one is entertaining because of the exactitude of its requirements, but it could possibly pan out in the future to have some merit. Take a five ounce magnet in your left hand and a three ounce magnet in your right hand and alternatively rotate them exactly three inches away from your skull for five minutes. To be honest, magnets have been used in scientific studies to treat various illnesses and there are subcultures out there that turn to magnetic power as a general cure-all for just about anything. To say that magnets could have no effect at all migraines might be going too far, but it’s still got to rank as bad advice to assume that the magnets have to be of different weights, held in different hands and only work when held at a specific distance for a specific amount of time. Then again, who knows?

There are several modes of thought that might find this next one actually makes sense. Those who are completely convinced that all migraine pain is in your head and that medicine can’t work because it’s not accomplishing anything anyway might just see past the idiocy of this next one. Quit your medication cold turkey, stiff it out for a few weeks and desensitize your head. Sure. And maybe if angina sufferers just desensitize their hearts they won’t die from a heart attack.

Sit in a bathtub filled with ice for five minutes then take a hot shower until all the ice has melted away. Where to begin on this one? In the first place, sitting in a tub billed with ice may take your attention away from the headache, but only because you are transferring your attention to the pain caused by frostbite. It’s almost certainly not a good idea to sit that long in ice. Next comes the question why does the shower have to last until the ice melts? Is there some magic in the time it takes for hot water to melt away all that ice. This one goes beyond merely bad advice straight to insane. It’s almost impossible to imagine how this cure could work.

Quit your job and sell Amway. This one probably came from a top level Amway distributor trying to add to his pyramid.

Migraines are caused by severe resentment of someone. If you can overcome the resentment, you will get rid of your migraines. There are two problems with this treatment. One, resentment has nothing to do with migraines and two, getting rid of migraines is probably easier than overcoming resentment.

A lot of crazy advice over the years about a lot of different things has gradually turned into accepted methods of treatment. After all, who would ever have thought that bread mold could cure disease? Still, it’s probably not the best idea in the world to take a razor to your head.

That thing about dating younger women still doesn’t sound too bad, though.


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