A Little-Known Way to Stop Chronic Migraine Headaches
Chronic migraine headaches can be disabling and painful. To be considered chronic they must be present a minimum of 15 times each month for three consecutive months. If they occur less than 15 times a month they are not considered chronic, but episodic. Approximately 3% to 5% of the world’s population experiences migraine, which is about 300 or 400 million people.
Migraines are typically one-sided pounding or throbbing headaches that are moderate to severe in intensity. They are more often than not accompanied by other symptoms that will occur before, during, or after the headache. Almost two-thirds of all migraine sufferers will experience some type of symptoms before the actual headache. These pre-headache symptoms can be nausea, vomiting, visual disturbances, auditory disturbances, mood changes, depression, and many others.
Auras occur in about 20% or 25% of migraine sufferers and typically consist of visual disturbances, but can also include increased sensitivity to loud noises or odors. Whenever symptoms precede a migraine attack it can alert the migraineur of an upcoming attack. With this advanced warning it is often possible to begin treatment early and avert a full-blown migraine attack.
There are many ways to stop migraine headache using natural approaches, but finding the treatment that works for you may not be as easy as you would think. Just because one treatment works for your coworker doesn’t mean it will work for you. If some of the more common approaches don’t give you the results you want you may need to dig deeper for an answer to your problem. One possible solution may be to check your drinking water.
Drinking lots of clean filtered water may help
If water is to blame for your migraines it may not be what’s in the water, but how much of it you drink. Not drinking enough water can cause the body to dehydrate rather quickly in some people, triggering a migraine headache. The solution is to drink more water. If you’re drinking enough water your urine should be a pale straw color and you will be urinating about once every four hours. In addition, you should try going no longer than 3 hours between drinks.
In addition to dehydration, certain chemicals in the water can trigger migraine headaches, and in particular, chronic migraines. There are many chemicals in drinking water that can cause migraines, but nitrates are probably the most common. Nitrates are inorganic minerals that are found in large amounts all over the world. They are in the ocean, freshwater, ground, and air.
Animal manure contains high levels of nitrates which eventually can work their way into tap water. High levels of nitrates in drinking water have been shown to trigger migraines. To find out if you have excessive amounts of nitrates in your water you can buy a cheap test kit at the hardware store. If you discover high levels of nitrates in your water you can either start drinking bottled water or better yet, use a filter to remove them from your water.
Nitrates are also found in many foods, but particularly in cured meats such as hot dogs, ham, salami, and others. This means if you find high levels of nitrates in your water and then filter it, you may still get headaches from the nitrates in your food. If you want to find make sure that nitrates are not causing your headaches you will need to avoid eating foods that contain nitrates too.