LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

Migraine

Headaches in Teenagers: Simple Tool Blocked by Meds

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Last Update December 18, 2014

migraine in children
philippe Devanne/Dollar Photo Club

Headaches are bad enough, but when they occur in children it can be heartwrenching. The good news is headaches in teenagers and kids can be managed very well.

First things first.  It should NEVER be acceptable for a child to have headaches and manage them with medications.  Period.  It’s bad enough to accept headaches in adults when have had a lifetime of abuse on their bodies and brains.  But when they happen in a child something is wrong and whatever it is needs to be identified and eliminated.

Merely medicating the problem is a very bad idea. Using chronic medication to prevent headaches in children should be heavily frowned upon.

The causes are many and varied.  They can include:

  • Structural problems related to carrying a heavy backpack or sports.  Get to a chiropractor.
  • Vision problems.  Get to an optician.
  • Stress / family issues.  Resolve them for your child’s sake.  Get to a therapist.
  • Anemia
  • Poor quality diet
  • Artificial sweeteners
  • Allergies

The list can get quite long, but if you’ve got the time, read through past posts related to migraines here.

This particular article focuses on a powerful tool that can help greatly with headaches in teenagers as well as headaches in children.

Biofeedback.  Biofeedback, in general, is a process by which a device is used help the user gain greater control over some type of biological function such as blood pressure, breathing or skin temperature.  The Resperate is a biofeedback device for breathing that is FDA approved to lower blood pressure that we use with very good results in our office.

Researchers looked at biofeedback in pediatric headaches to see if biofeedback was effective and, if so, what factors influenced its effectiveness.  Findings are summarized as follows:

  1. Headache frequency dropped from 3.5 to 2 headache days (keep in mind that Topamax was 1/3 less effective than this!)
  2. The response rate was 58% overall; 48% for chronic headaches and 73% for episodic headaches
  3. The ability to raise hand temperature by >3 degrees and use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were associated with a positive response
  4. Preventive medication (think Elavil, Tegretol, Depakote, Inderal) use actually kept the biofeedback from working

(Personally, I don’t like the finding that SSRIs were associated with a positive response, but it is what it is…)

So, if your child is experiencing headaches, biofeedback is just yet another tool that can help to calm the brain and settle activity down.  There are even multiple apps available on the Droid and iPhone that you can download and have on hand as an immediate tool.

If your child has or is experiencing headaches, we prophylactic medications recommended before lifestyle changes?

MITOCHONDRIAL DYSFUNCTION AND MIGRAINE – (05-15-06)

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Mitochondrial dysfunction and migraine: evidence and hypotheses

Ok–so some still consider it a hypothesis. But once I get my book together (titled: Mitchondrial Dysfunction as the Root of All That is Evil in Chronic Diseases) everyone will consider it fact. This model fits very well into migraine but leaves a big gaping problem. Mitochondrial dysfunction can create a very large variety of problems (see title for future book, above…) and I have yet to have a migraine patient come into my office that has been treated w/ anything other than meds. If this model turns out to be correct, then we are grossly mismanaging our migraine patients by not addressing the problem. Rather, we are medicating to get rid of the symptoms.

Read entire article here

Chronic Migraine Treatment: Have You Tried These 7 Steps?

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Migraine headache sufferers are told we don’t know what causes migraines, so all we can do is control them. Thus, chronic migraine treatment today = medication.

I would contend that this is just not true.

But to understand the basics of migraine headaches, you first need to understand my favorite part of the cell, the mitochondria…

The little “powerhouse of the cell.”  That little organelle within the cell that helps to generate energy for a cell.  And the “energy currency” for every cell is adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.  There are some billion or so reactions that occur in our body EVERY SECOND, and each one of these requires a molecule of ATP to get the job done.

Some tissues, like fat, use very little energy.  Others, like the heart, our muscles and our brain, use much more.  At rest, the nervous system, which includes our brain, is the greatest utilizer of ATP in the body.  Once we start moving, the muscles take over and have the greatest need.

Imagine that.  As you sit here reading this, your brain is requiring mass amounts of energy just to process the information.

So what does this mean?  It means that each cell of the nervous system requires thousands of mitochondria just to generate the energy needed for a brain cell just to perform it’s basic functions.  And each of these mitochondria are little factories churning out ATP for the brain cell to use at an enormous rate.

As the mitochondria in your brain cells work, they produce a nasty little byproduct called free radicals. Too many free radicals and the brain cell gets damaged.  It turns out that these free radicals may destroy transporters that pick up the a chemical called glutamate from outside of the cell.

If glutamate does not get cleaned up the way it is supposed to, it will keep sending its message again and again and again—constantly sending the neuron into overdrive.  Kind of like a skipping record (sorry Generation Xers–you’ll have to Google “record…”) that irritates your brain.

Because of all of the above and more, evidence has been present for several decades now that the protection and nutritional support of the mitochondria needs to be an integral part of avoiding, reducing the severity of and reducing the long term ramifications of migraines and seizures.

This particular article reinforces this concept, stating that glutamate activation and mitochondrial problems are critical in the causes of migraines.

So what can you do to improve your migraines?

  1. Calorie restriction without nutrient restriction is probably the most powerful method to improve brain cell function
  2. If cutting calories won’t work for you, try alternate day calorie restriction
  3. Magnesium can help to improve the way your brain cells are working
  4. Bhadori leanness principle uses exercise and calorie restriction
  5. The supplement carnitine may help improve mitochondrial function
  6. The amino acids cystine and glycine may help

MIGRAINE AND RISK OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE IN WOMEN – (10-23-06)

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Migraine and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Women

I continue to drone on about how migraine is a systemic condition that needs to be addressed from a whole-body standpoint. If we do not, we see the long term ramifications and increased risk of many chronic diseases.

This particular study finds a relationship between migraine and cardiovascular disease in women. So, everyone with migraines being treated with Topamax (wow–have the drugs reps been doing their jobs or what?? I’ve had more patients coming in on Topamax in the past 6 months than all other yrs combined!!) should really re-assess this approach as it does not fix the underlying physiological imbalance that is putting them at risk for chronic diseases such as stroke and CVD.

Read entire article here

SUNFLOWER SEEDS AND BANANAS ARE GOOD FOR MIGRAINE PATIENTS – (09-29-05)

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Effect of tryptophan depletion on symptoms of motion sickness in migraineurs

It’s just been a month for revelations for me. Never considered the serotonin pathway as playing a role in motion sickness, but this study found that migraine patients depleted of tryptophan (serotonin’s precursor) experienced worse dizziness and nausea. From a natural standpoint, foods like sunflower seeds and bananas are a good source of tryptophan that can make it across the blood brain barrier w/o much competition. Supplemental L-tryptophan or 5 -HTP would have similar effects.

Read entire article here

CHRONIC MIGRAINE INCREASES RISK OF CERVICAL ARTERY DISSECTION – (08-01-05)

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History of migraine and the risk of spontaneous cervical artery dissection

The association of migraine with stroke is becoming stronger and stronger and it is well past the time for physicians to stop treating migraines with pain meds and look at the entire patient.  Just medicating the patient pays no attention to the underlying physiological imbalances that are present and allow them to occur unchecked.

The responsibility is also on the migraine patient — they need to understand that to truly address their headaches that, in most cases, major lifestyle change overhauls are going to be necessary.

Read entire article here

MIGRAINE TREATMENT LOWERS INFLAMMATION – (07-18-05)

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Plasma Cytokine Levels in Migraineurs and Controls

Speaking of inflammation, put migraines on the list of conditions associated w/ inflammation.  The problem with this is that that makes migraines a local manifestation of a systemic problem.  So, just treating the headache w/ pain meds does nothing the address the underlying inflammation, leaving the patient at increased risk of a hoard of other chronic diseases because this was not addressed.  Lifestyle changes geared towards lowering inflammation HAS to be a part of any migraine treatment protocol.

Read entire article here

MIGRAINE AND ATRIAL DEFECTS – (07-18-05)

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Migraine With Aura Related to Closure of Atrial Septal Defects

While this is only a case report, and we generally do not allow single case studies to change clinical approaches, this one brings up an important consideration.  Research is starting to show a link between heart defects and migraines.  Many patients find relief of their migraines when the hole in the heart is closed.  But this is a case study of a patient that experienced a drastic increase in the frequency of her migraines after closure-a procedure that should show the opposite effect.

But, looking at the big picture, it is very possible that the heart defect contributes to migraines by lowering the overall oxygen tension in the blood and/or reduced removal of diffusable toxins in the lungs (at least this is MY story…) affecting the mitochondria of the nervous system.  However, anesthesia is well known to lower oxygen tension.  It is highly likely that this patient’s oxidative stress was worsened by the anesthesia, resulting in worsening of her migraines.

Read entire article here