Headaches

Over the years, I’ve come to understand that headaches are my body’s way of telling me something’s out of balance.
Generally speaking headaches are an inflammation in the head area (including brain and certain glands). The trick is to find out what is causing the inflammation. Inflammation is the response of a body tissue to injury or irritation; inflammation is characterized by pain and swelling and redness and heat. Many things can cause inflammation in the head area, such as toxins, allergens and infections caused by parasites, fungus, bacteria or viruses. A lack of adequate nutrition can cause non-optimal operation in the head area, which also causes the brain or a gland in the head area to inflame.

Treatment of Headaches

Typically doctors prescribe pain-killers for headaches. If a headache is chronic, often testing, such as MRIs, is done but it’s rare to find anything abnormal in this type of testing and pain-killers continue to be prescribed, often with increased strength or dosage. Pain-killers, however, are highly addictive, and have many other unhealthy side effects.

We rule out any environmental cause of your headache and put you on a program that can relieve the headaches on a short-term as well as a long-term basis. She does this by consulting with you about your history, current diet and lifestyle.
The consultation can be done over the phone or as an in-office visit.

When I am doing my best at practicing what I preach — optimizing my diet, taking my core supplements consistently, drinking enough water, and exercising with regular walking and Pilates — my headaches are almost non-existent, even during my period!
A healthy lifestyle, one that optimizes nutrition and supports natural hormonal balance, is the first step in any drug-free approach to preventing and treating frequent headaches. Most headaches have multifactorial roots, however, which means relieving them may require multiple strategies.In addition, there are many different types of headaches, so that means wide variation in triggers and differing components of the headaches themselves. What causes a headache depends on a woman’s individual situation — her nutrition, stress factors, body mechanics — and her medical history. But one thing is certain: in most cases, a headache is a symptom of something deeper going on in her lifeThe three major categories into which most chronic headaches fall aretension headaches, cluster headaches, and migraine headaches. We will discuss each major type separately, as well as briefly review rebound headaches and touch on a less common but serious form of headache known astemporal arteritis. There are many other subtypes — from caffeine withdrawal headaches to menstrual headaches, and the lines between many of these can be blurry, so if you are unsure what type of headache you suffer from, it may be helpful for you to see your healthcare practitioner for a diagnosis. Please note that what we are talking about here concerns most moderate headaches — if your headaches deviate from the norm, change or worsen in a way you find alarming, seek medical attention immediately
Ten ways to eliminate headaches naturally

1. Focus on diet and optimal nutrition.

We always start by suggesting that headache sufferers take a close look at their diet. For many people, sugar, caffeine and alcohol are headache triggers. While it may not be possible for you to eliminate them from your diet, gradually reducing your intake may decrease the frequency of your headaches. Ensuring that your body has all the proper essential vitamins and minerals it needs to work efficiently will also aid in reducing headache frequency and intensity. A balanced diet rich in all the food groups, but focusing on whole foods in their natural state, forms a solid base. We recommend women take a top quality daily multivitamin that includes calcium, magnesium and EFA’s in addition to a healthy diet — because even the best nutrition nowadays is likely to have gaps.

2. Consider testing for food and environmental allergies and sensitivities.

Many patients at our clinic receive blood testing for food and environmental allergies and sensitivities. Many of the larger labs now offer these tests, often with a regional focus. We also use a specialty lab for ALCAT allergy testing which provides detailed guidance.
Headache-aggravating foods worth investigating include alcohol (wine especially), dairy, aged and fermented foods, and any highly processed food product. Substances in foods of greatest concern to headache sufferers include tyramine, nitrites, MSG, sulfites, histamines, tannins, and prostaglandins; plus artificial colorants, preservatives, and sweeteners such as aspartame (NutraSweet).
Depending on your unique physiology, a headache could be triggered by just about any substance. To get a handle on what affects you, consider being tested. And don’t forget your environment; mould, scented candles, air fresheners, cosmetics, cleaning products — even soap — are all suspect. We have found NAET (Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques) to be successful at diagnosing and clearing both food and environmental issues.

3. Reduce inflammation with regular detoxification.

Much of the inflammation in your system starts with inflammation of the gut. Good digestion and regular daily bowel movements are signs of efficient detoxification. One of the first signs of sensitivity to a toxin is a headache, and chronic headaches may indicate that your body is trying to process a heavier toxic load. Magnesium at bedtime and a daily dose of probiotics can really help. Consider a biannual detox and colon cleanse if you have any issues with IBS or constipation. We will be covering this topic at length in an upcoming newsletter, so stay tuned.

4. Adopt stress management and relaxation techniques.

Once you start tracking your headaches, you may reach a conclusion prevalent in most healthcare circles: mild to moderate headache sufferers always feel better when they’re on vacation. Why? The answer is simple — stress reduction!
We cannot escape stress, but we can develop better coping strategies for daily challenges — at home and at work. This takes attention, self-care, and awareness. If you feel overwhelmed, begin with small steps you are confident you can take — these will lend momentum toward a greater shift.
Sometimes a therapist, behavioral counselor or life coach can help you explore the emotional roots of your learned coping strategies, so you can get past those that are not serving you well. Don’t forget the possibilities of physical stress — poor ergonomics at work, too much staring at a screen or driving — even carrying a heavy purse or wearing an ill-fitting bra can cause muscle tension leading to headache.
Many women respond to yoga, meditation, and deep breathing exercises to reduce tension. Others may prefer a more active antidote to stress, like running or swimming. And still others find peace in learning a new hobby or artistic technique. It is up to you to learn what you find soothing and do it more consistently. Think about how you can build “mini-vacations” into each day. Counselors, doctors, books, and classes are all good places to start. I often recommend the book The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook.

5. Get enough sleep.

Sleeping soundly for a good amount of time can surely help headache sufferers in many ways. Most of us thrive on seven to nine hours per night, with less in summer, more in winter for some. If you have trouble falling asleep or find yourself waking in the night, take a look at what you do before going to bed.
You can set the stage for a better night’s rest by making a few simple adjustments. Some women need a small bedtime snack to keep their blood sugar stable. Other women may do well with extra adrenal or serotonin support that can shift their physiology into a deeper, more restful sleep cycle. At the clinic and the Personal Program we sometimes suggest a short-term course of phosphorylated serine or 5-HTP for these purposes. If hormonal fluctuations are contributing to restless sleep, these may be influencing your headaches as well, and progesterone support may help.
Most women find that more peaceful activities during the two hours before bedtime translate to more peaceful sleep. No More Sleepless Nights is a good resource that details successful sleep hygiene techniques and has proven to help sleep in my patients.

6. Stay well hydrated.

Many of my patients’ headaches improve dramatically once they focus on drinking more water daily. Most have no idea they are dehydrated! Your best bet is to increase water consumption slowly, working up to 8–10 glasses a day by increasing one cup per day every three days. Sipping throughout the day is better for you than guzzling large quantities of water in one sitting, but we encourage you to experiment and do whatever works best for you and maintains good results. Many people are convinced they don’t need so much water, but if you suffer chronic headaches, what easier way to take better care of yourself than to drink more water?

7. Evaluate body mechanics and alignment.

Posture and head and neck alignment are huge factors in nearly all types of headaches. Many of us are unaware how significantly our body architecture affects our joints until we face chronic pain. A chronic headache may be your body’s telltale sign that something is misaligned and not working for you.
It is critical to make sure your desk and overall work environment are ergonomically correct for your body’s dimensions and work activities — especially repetitive or computer tasks. Consider strength and alignment training with a certified yoga or Pilates trainer. Pay attention to how you “shoulder” the weight of your life. Are you sleeping in a healthy position? Cradling the phone? Driving? Carrying your purse? All of these activities add up to major stress and lead to head and neck pain over time, so don’t overlook the obvious.
Talk with your dentist about your bite and whether or not you grind your teeth. Ask about whether you might benefit from an occlusal adjustment — a process that realigns the way your teeth surfaces impact each other when you bite down. I recently had this done and my jaw feels tremendously better — along with getting a soft night guard to reduce the damage from clenching. Many dentists now prescribe a night guard to all their patients because it helps relax the jaw so effectively.

8. Get regular exercise and stretch daily.

We all need exercise for its manifold benefits — to the heart, circulation, muscle tone, and stress reduction. Most tension headache sufferers will find immense relief with the addition of exercise — and there is the added benefit of deep breathing and better oxygenation. But remember to pace yourself if you are beginning a new routine, and to support your workout with good nutrition and plenty of water.

9. Explore alternative manipulative therapies.

Many headache sufferers respond well to massage therapy, Reiki, the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, and acupuncture. In fact, any form of bodywork or physical therapy that attends to misalignment, administered by a well trained practitioner, may help you break a pattern of chronic headaches. Even a good personal trainer can help. If you pursue Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, we recommend finding a licensed practitioner. Other women do very well under the care of a chiropractor or osteopath for spinal and craniosacral manipulation. If these methods work in alleviating headaches for you, I would take that as a clue that additional strength and alignment training could help you firm up the web of muscles that supports your shoulders, head, and neck.

10. Support with supplements.

In addition to a full-spectrum multivitamin with EFA’s, we recommend some specific supplements to reduce headaches. Research — and our own medical experience — indicate that magnesium, probiotics, fiber, and vitamin D can all be helpful. Regular use of herbal products containing standardized, purified extracts of butterbur (Petasites hybridus) and feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) can help prevent migraines. A custom homeopathic or flower essence formula is also worth consideration, as they are very safe and yield good results — especially in combination with the above measures — in our natural approach to headache relief for women

Menstrual migraines and other hormonal headaches
by Marcy Holmes, NP, Certified Menopause Clinician
So many of our patients come in to the practice after being told by their conventional doctors that their hormonal symptoms are all in their head. In the case of menstrual migraines and hormonal headaches, they may be right!
Many women react to hormonal fluctuations with head pain, often in a cyclical fashion that corresponds to their monthly ebb and flow of estrogen and progesterone. Conventional doctors and headache specialists often overlook this common headache trigger, and even when they don’t, they offer little in the way of long-term solutions. Most primary care physicians will write a prescription for a pain reliever or birth control pills or refer these patients over to their ob-gyn.
After seeing many of these women over the years, we are happy to report that a majority of our patients find their headaches become less frequent or disappear altogether once they systematically address their hormonal imbalance through diet, optimal nutrition, and short-term bioidentical hormonal supplementation.
Recently, we looked at natural relief for chronic headaches and migraines of all sources. Now we’d like to delve a little deeper into relief for hormonally-based headaches. Even if headaches have never been a concern before, many women may become more sensitive to their hormones as they age and may begin to experience hormonal headaches or menstrual migraines for the first time as they enter perimenopause.
We’ve had great success in treating the root cause of these hormonal headaches and migraines with the holistic approach that forms the basis of our Personal Program. It can take a bit longer than popping a pill, but I assure you, relief from your headache is only one of the long-term benefits.
Who gets hormonal headaches?
Women who are susceptible to hormonal fluctuations often suffer with menstrual headaches or migraines just prior to the onset of menses, when there is a natural drop in progesterone levels (see our diagram of the menstrual cycle.) But headaches may also occur at ovulation, when estrogen and other hormones spike, or during menses itself, when estrogen and progesterone have bottomed out.
Hormonal headaches can come on suddenly or become more unpredictable in perimenopause or at menopause, when a woman’s hormones are really shifting. Some women who have never experienced headache or migraine before begin to suffer with regularity. I once knew a woman with incapacitating migraines in her initial year ofmenopause, similar to what she recalled experiencing at puberty/menarche, but without headache pain for the 40 years in between! Every woman is different, and tuning into your body’s own unique signals is the first step in any kind of natural prevention or treatment.
As with any other kind of headache or migraine, tracking the onset of your pain with our Wellness Diary or another journal will help you get a handle on the pattern and cause. If you are still menstruating, I recommend charting the days of your period for a few months with the same journal. This will give you a better understanding of the basic ebb and flow of hormones in your system each month and how they may relate to your headache or migraine. For an explanation of how hormones orchestrate your period, see our section on themenstrual cycle.
You should be aware that most headaches are multifactorial and may have overlapping triggers. Hormones are often part of the headache/migraine cascade, even if they haven’t been officially identified. Any woman with regular headaches or migraines can benefit from improving her overall ratio of estrogen and progesterone.
The estrogen–progesterone connection
Most hormonal headaches occur when levels of estrogen are off-kilter in relation to natural levels of progesterone. As noted above, for many women this may be correlated with the naturally lower levels of progesterone that are normal before the onset of menses, when progesterone levels naturally drop off. Or less frequently, it may be a state of true progesterone deficiency as some women, especially during perimenopause and menopause, may experience unnaturally low progesterone levels that require supplementation. Only a blood test or saliva test can give you a snapshot of what your levels actually look like.
I recommend testing progesterone levels during the mid luteal stage of your menstrual cycle. Depending on how many days are in your cycle, this usually occurs after ovulation, somewhere around day 21 of a classic 28–day cycle. Some practitioners will provide a simple saliva test; others think it is a bit controversial and recommend the more expensive blood test. At Women to Women, we start with one but offer both, depending on the woman’s age and severity of symptoms.
Typically, what we find in women of all ages is that “baseline” progesterone levels are acceptable but the ratio of progesterone to estrogen is off. This doesn’t mean your estrogen levels are abnormal (although, if you’re worried, you can test your estrogen levels as well with a blood panel). Most of the time it simply means the level of estrogen is out of sync with the opposing progesterone level.
If your headaches occur around ovulation, this can represent a temporary state of monthly fluctuation that manifests as symptoms ofPMS or breast tenderness and headache at ovulation, or it can become a more entrenched state and drag on through the entire luteal phase. One thing is certain, however: if the ratio of estrogen to progesterone is less than optimal for what your body needs to cope (and this is individual), you will have uncomfortable physical symptoms and, in susceptible women, hormonal migraines or headaches.
How does the ratio of estrogen to progesterone go awry? It may be that you are an “estrogenic” kind of person, one whose body readily converts progesterone into estrogen. It may also be that you are susceptible — as many of us are — to the rising level of xenoestrogens and other endocrine disruptors in our environment. These substances mimic estrogen in the body and can topple your delicate hormonal balance. (Keep in mind you may also have other dietary or stress–related triggers in addition to your hormones). Once you suspect that your headaches or migraines have a hormonal component, you can begin to do something about them.
Preventing hormonal headaches naturally
Getting to the root of these hormonal headaches means dealing with a temporary or chronic imbalance of estrogen in relation to progesterone. As we so often say, a healthy diet that avoids or eliminates simple carbohydrates, refined sugars, and processed foods is always the first step. Our lifestyle and nutritional guidelines can get you started.
The second step is to decrease or eliminate toxins that can be exacerbating your hormonal imbalance. For this, our two–week Quick-Cleanse can be very helpful. Again, it is always a good idea to be wary of endocrine–disrupting chemicals in your environment and avoid them to the degree possible — even the perfume in your cosmetics can be a migraine trigger.
The third step is to fill in any dietary gaps with nutritional supplements. Good choices to begin with are core nutrients like those offered in our Personal Program — a rich multivitamin, essential fatty acids, and calcium/magnesium. All are crucial to supporting your hormone balance and restoring a good progesterone-to-estrogen ratio. Additional nutritional support measures can also be considered, such as moderate soy, fresh ground flax seed, or other foods high in fatty acids, fiber, isoflavones, and lignan precursors.
As for specific supplements that can nip migraines in the bud, there are several to choose from. Principally, certain herbs have been used to prevent and treat headaches by herbalists for thousands of years, at least two of which are now solidly confirmed by scientists as effective in clinical trials: butterbur (Petasites hybridus) and feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium). The mineral magnesium and vitamin B2 (riboflavin) have both likewise been demonstrated to decrease migraine frequency in people who normally have multiple migraines a month. By effective, we mean at least a 50% reduction in migraine frequency.
Today there are various safe, over-the-counter migraine prevention formulas that combine these natural ingredients, and I’d encourage you to look into them because they can be especially helpful in combination formulas. For example, Migravent contains all four of the above ingredients: feverfew, butterbur, magnesium, and riboflavin. We are watching those patients who are taking this and will report back on their experiences. Further information on these products can easily be found on the web.
There are additional plant extracts and foods that women have long used in various cultures to ameliorate headaches and other symptoms associated with fluctuating hormones, including soy, black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa) and dong quai (Angelica sinensis). While we generally recommend that anyone considering the use of naturopathic remedies consult the advice of a qualified practitioner, you can also talk to your regular healthcare practitioner or call one of our Member Advisors to find out what may work best for you. For many women, a change in diet, nutrition level, and lifestyle is all they need to feel better.
Once you’ve established a basic core of nutrition, you may find that adding natural hormone supplementation at the right time of the month, specifically bioidentical progesterone, provides a great deal of relief. Most of our patients find that proper use of a low-dose bioidentical progesterone cream — in combination with the proceeding measures — gets rid of their hormonal headaches entirely. But for natural progesterone to be effective in this area, you need to know when to use it. Here are some guidelines based on the timing of your hormonal headaches.

Using bioidentical hormones to abort hormonal headaches

For premenstrual and perimenopausal headaches and migraines The most likely triggers for headaches that occur premenstrually, or those in perimenopause, include a sensitivity to the natural drop-off in progesterone levels as the luteal phase of your cycle (second half) progresses, or alternatively, an ongoing progesterone deficit. For this pattern we recommend you apply the cream as directed during the last two weeks of your cycle.

Headaches and migraines at ovulation If you have mid-cycle/ovulatory headaches, they may stem from the elevation in estrogen which, in concert with spikes in FSH and LH, corresponds with ovulation. It is completely natural for estrogen to have the slight upper hand at this stage of your cycle. For a pattern such as this, evaluate your cycle history and based on your average cycle length, apply cream on or around day 12, or two days prior to ovulation. If you are not sure when you ovulate, you may want to try an over-the-counterovulation predictor kit or use another natural method such as monitoring your mucus and basal body temperature (BBT).

Headaches and migraines during your period If menstrual headaches persist throughout your menses even after you’ve tried the natural balancing measures we’ve discussed, it may be helpful to try prescription–strength bioidentical estrogen supplementation, such as the estradiol patch, during your period. Talk to your healthcare practitioner about this.

Preventing birth control pill–related headaches
Many women on birth control pills report hormonal headaches on the second or third day of their placebo pills. We suspect these are similar to menstrual headaches, and are due to the relatively precipitous drop in synthetic hormones that women on BCP’s experience during their placebo week (the point in the cycle when you typically experience a withdrawal bleed).
Every woman taking synthetic birth control will feel better with optimal nutritional support, which will help their bodies metabolize and clear the synthetic hormones. Women on BCP’s can also use low-dose, bioidentical progesterone cream for support. We typically suggest using it on the days that correspond with days 7–21 of the pill package, or it can be tried during the last week, during the placebo pill phase. Alternatively, some women may want to try using a bioidentical estradiol patch during their week of placebo pills to see if that helps as well, but again, you will need to work with your healthcare to finesse these options.
If your migraines are really severe, you might consider extending the number of days you are on the active pills by actually skipping the placebo pills for a few months at a time. I don’t generally condone this, but it is a viable option for women who have difficulty in making certain lifestyle or dietary changes, or for those who don’t want to use bioidentical progesterone. This can be more easily be accomplished with “monophasic” birth control pills (all the pills in the pack contain the same dose) than with the “phasic” products (those with a gradation in dosages throughout the cycle). You simply skip the placebo and take, for example, 6–9 weeks of “active” birth control pills instead. (Unexpected breakthrough bleeding may occur and can be problematic, but you should at least be protected from pregnancy if you take your pills on time each day.)
Additionally, there is the option for women who elect to use BCP’s to shorten the “pill-free” interval, that is, to take the placebo pills for fewer days than the packet would indicate. If any of these options seem reasonable for you, talk to your healthcare practitioner about ways in which you might be able to modify your prescription. See our article about birth control pill use in perimenopause to learn more.

A word about hormone use and hormonal headaches

At Women to Women, we always begin treatment by encouraging our patients to describe to us how they treat themselves. We want to hear them voice their medical and personal history, dietary, lifestyle and emotional concerns. And while we believe that natural (bioidentical) hormone supplementation is an important therapeutic for some women, and can be particularly useful in treating hormonal headaches, we are always aware that hormones — even if they are natural — are very powerful. That’s why we recommend a blood test for any woman who is interested in using hormones, especially if she is nearing menopause. And it’s also why we think of any kind of hormonal supplementation as a bridge to natural, self-sustaining hormonal balance, not an end solution.
If you are still menstruating or within a year of menopause, you may want to discuss a trial of low-dose bioidentical progesterone, as described above, with your healthcare provider. In combination with other lifestyle changes it may help your body to become more progesterone–balanced without further supplementation. For headache or migraine relief we do not promote the use of synthetic progestins like Provera or synthetic HRT combinations because they act more as vasoconstrictors and can actually worsen headache symptoms! The pharmacokinetics of real, bioidentical progesterone is entirely different as it is metabolized instinctively by the body.
Nonetheless, even on a low-dose, bioidentical hormone you should continue to exercise caution and tune in to your body’s signals. If you are using bioidentical progesterone and experience increased headache or other PMS symptoms such as breast tenderness, or you begin to sense these symptoms at ovulation, you may be hard-wired to convert extra progesterone into estrogen, in which case additional progesterone may not be a good choice for you. With any persistent heavy bleeding, unusual spotting, breast tenderness, or other serious symptoms while using bioidentical progesterone products, discontinue use and contact your healthcare provider — further evaluation may be needed.
Rescue treatments for hormonal headache pain
Becoming aware of the timing of your hormonal headaches or migraines can certainly help you decrease their frequency with preventative measures, and we encourage you to read our article on chronic headaches, particularly the section on migraines, to learn more about migraine patterns and theories. Nevertheless, even women who adopt the healthiest lifestyle and dietary habits and hormonal–balancing measures can get the occasional painful migraine. Life is full of stressors and you can’t be on top of all of them all the time! When hormonal headaches and migraines arise acutely despite our best efforts, prompt implementation of rescue treatment measures as early as possible will deliver the most effective relief.
When worse comes to worst, there are a few rescue meds that can be useful to have in your medicine chest. Use these with caution: take only as directed, and never use any drug without discussing your lifestyle and other prescriptions with your practitioner first.

• NSAID’s. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAID’s) can be particularly helpful if used early and at a dose optimal for you. I suggest ibuprofen (brand names Advil or Motrin) with food, up to 800 mg every 4–6 hours, no more than two days in any given week (max is 2400 mg per 24-hour period). However, some women really respond well to plain old-fashioned aspirin, and some to Excedrin Migraine, which contains acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine.

If you are in the habit of taking NSAID’s, please read the section of our chronic headache article on avoiding rebound headaches. If you are trying to conceive or are pregnant, acetominophen (aka paracetamol, or brand name Tylenol) is the only recommended choice in the NSAID category, to protect the safety of the fetus/baby. Ibuprofen and aspirin can cause birth defects and other serious problems with your growing baby, so be sure to discuss with your midwife or obstetrician before using any medications. Fortunately for hormonal headache sufferers, pregnancy is often a time of reprieve.

• Triptans. These are antimigraine agents that are believed to work by binding to serotonin receptors in the brain to constrict blood vessels and reduce inflammation. Some headache experts suggest that women who observe that their migraines or debilitating headaches occur predictably on certain days, e.g., day 1 or 2 of menses, take a triptan once or twice a day on those days as prophylaxis. Although this usage has not been formally approved by the FDA, you can certainly ask your headache specialist about this.

Triptans such as Frova, Imitrex, and Relpax are newer triptan pain formulations with long-acting effect. Again, they work best when taken as close to the migraine onset (prodrome) as possible. If one triptan doesn’t work well for you or you had side effects, another formula may be better — so don’t despair. Every woman is different and each has an individual response; it may just take time to figure out the right solution for you. Triptans are not advisable for use in pregnancy, and must be used with extreme caution if also on an SSRI antidepressant.

• Other prescription migraine treatments. For a complete list of migraine treatments used in conventional clinical settings, visit the website of the National Headache Foundation. Many of these treatments were developed to address other medical conditions, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, congestion, and so on, but were coincidentally found to abort the acute pain of migraines. In some cases, they are used in combination and as a preventative and a therapeutic. All of these drugs must be taken under strict medical supervision. If you are currently taking any of these medications, it is still safe to consider all of the other natural measures we’ve discussed above.

As headaches are so often multifactorial, we also suggest you review our list of ten ways to eliminate chronic headaches naturally. Implementing these practices, too, will certainly contribute to the wellbeing of any woman who suffers from hormonally-driven headaches and migraines. Hopefully, with time, you will find yourself relying less and less on a heavy-duty pain-reliever and increasingly on your body’s innate wellness mechanisms.
Balanced and pain-free
While headaches may seem to be “all in your head,” the most effective treatment for any health problem takes into account the needs of the whole body. Unlike conventional medicine which only treats the pain, an integrative approach restores the body’s baseline ratio of hormones. If you and your practitioner think your hormones are causing your headaches, that may actually be a good thing, because it means that a wealth of opportunity exists for you to take proactive measures.
By focusing on core nutrition, proper supplements, and a healthy lifestyle, with careful use natural hormonal support when needed in times of change, you can decrease both the frequency and intensity of your hormonal headaches. You may even find that other symptoms dissipate as well. This bottom-up approach may require you to invest a few months before you notice significant improvement. But once you get there, you may find yourself completely free of your headaches — and your back-up pain-relievers!

NOTE: Severe, blinding pain that comes on suddenly with no prior migraine history should be taken seriously. If you are experiencing new or different headaches, severe headaches, or headaches with associated sensory or neurological symptoms, seek immediate help at your local emergency department. DO NOT WAIT

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