Migraine relief tips

C No Ego

Well-Known Member
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191125100353.htm

Summary:
Inhaled cannabis reduces self-reported headache severity by 47.3% and migraine severity by 49.6%, according to a recent study. The study also found no evidence that cannabis caused 'overuse headache,' a pitfall of more conventional treatments. The researchers did see patients using larger doses of cannabis over time, indicating they may be developing tolerance to the drug.​
a tolerance to just one type of cannabis develops over time, hence multiple varietals, multiple effects. hence legalization, hence people Are Hell!
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
I've posted this earlier but .... We tried it all and cannabis and Botox were very helpful. Botox worked great for about 9 months until the body figured out how to fight off the Botox. All we were left with was cannabis which was a huge help but it didn't eliminate the pain.

When the Botox stopped working the neurologist said he had one more thing we could try. Occipital surgery for migraine. The problem is that none of the health insurance companies cover it so it's thousands of dollars out of pocket. Without going into great detail....The premise is that the occipital nerves are being "stressed" and need to be "released". They do numbing agent tests of the front and back of the head where the occipital nerves can cause migraines. The numbing agent doesn't last long. Just long enough to see if the patient will benefit from the surgery. Our surgeon applied the minimal cost of the test to the overall surgery cost.

To us it was worth a try....the numbing tests worked and when the surgery was over the surgeon said "He was able to free up the nerves and that they were being "impacted" by a abnormality pressing on the nerves. Takes awhile for the pain from the surgery to subside so you can tell how well the surgery went but when the smoke cleared.....no more 24/7 migraines! My wife now gets migraines like a normal person (One or two a month and sometimes less).

The irony of all this is that the migraine doctors recommend occipital surgery as a last resort when everything else has been tried and failed. Our surgeon mentioned that it's been around for awhile now and one of the CFOs of a well known health insurance company had his daughter get the surgery and it worked beautifully. Go figure.....
 

Madri-Gal

Child Of The Revolution
I've posted this earlier but .... We tried it all and cannabis and Botox were very helpful. Botox worked great for about 9 months until the body figured out how to fight off the Botox. All we were left with was cannabis which was a huge help but it didn't eliminate the pain.

When the Botox stopped working the neurologist said he had one more thing we could try. Occipital surgery for migraine. The problem is that none of the health insurance companies cover it so it's thousands of dollars out of pocket. Without going into great detail....The premise is that the occipital nerves are being "stressed" and need to be "released". They do numbing agent tests of the front and back of the head where the occipital nerves can cause migraines. The numbing agent doesn't last long. Just long enough to see if the patient will benefit from the surgery. Our surgeon applied the minimal cost of the test to the overall surgery cost.

To us it was worth a try....the numbing tests worked and when the surgery was over the surgeon said "He was able to free up the nerves and that they were being "impacted" by a abnormality pressing on the nerves. Takes awhile for the pain from the surgery to subside so you can tell how well the surgery went but when the smoke cleared.....no more 24/7 migraines! My wife now gets migraines like a normal person (One or two a month and sometimes less).

The irony of all this is that the migraine doctors recommend occipital surgery as a last resort when everything else has been tried and failed. Our surgeon mentioned that it's been around for awhile now and one of the CFOs of a well known health insurance company had his daughter get the surgery and it worked beautifully. Go figure.....
I'm so pleased your wife is getting migraine treatment that is helping her. You both have my deepest sympathies for the suffering you have been through, and my best wishes for a pain free future.
 

Sick Vape

Solar Dabs
Wow, this is great news @His_Highness and very interesting! Having had prolonged severe migraine attacks myself, I have a little glimpse on what your wife has gone through. In my worst time I had around 5 days of migraine per week. So I always had a day or two with just "normal" headache, where I could recover a bit.
And I can only imagine what positive live change you are both undergoing now!

For me clean cannabis now works as a wonderful preventive for migraines with aura. Together with correct diet, good quality food, a somewhat regular lifestyle, it has reduces my migraines greatly.
While an attack is ongoing I basically cannot even swallow water, nor pills or whatever.
Inhaled cannabis is the only medication that works. Although it sometimes is difficult to stand the taste and odour when under migraine and the odour can seldom make me throw up too. The effect itself most often greatly reduces the headaches, reduces nausea, helps me sleep a moment, which is tremendously helpful and overall reduces the length of a migraine attack.

Now my doctor told me there are many different migraines and when I hear some people talking about their migraines, they are clearly not talking about the same as me, so everyones mileage varies.
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Thanks for the kind words @Madri-Gal / @Sick Vape ... our life is indeed back to being "a life".

When I think back to everything we tried including all the newly released migraine treatments I still marvel at how long it took and how much pain my wife dealt with. There is no doubt her ability to deal with pain is exponentially greater than mine. I also think back to her mother who had the same migraines for decades and never got relief.

We also learned the same thing....that migraines can be different for different people...and that hope is sometimes in short supply.

What annoys me is that in order to get the insurance company to cover Botox we had to prove that we attempted every other solution available (except Occipital Nerve Surgery) which took years. Then when the Botox stopped working the neurologist said he had one last recommendation AND THAT IF IT WORKS HE WON'T BE TREATING US ANYMORE SINCE HE'S ALREADY HAD SEVERAL PATIENTS STOP SEEING HIM BECAUSE IT WORKED SO WELL. When I asked the neuro why he didn't mention it before he said "nobody wants to pay the total out of pocket". I suggested going forward he tell his other migraine patients and let them decide. And don't even get me started on the health insurance not covering the surgery since the surgeon does upfront successful testing for a couple hundred bucks before doing the surgery. How can they not cover something if the surgeon has to verify it'll work first!?!?!
 

MinnBobber

Well-Known Member
CBD effective??
I assist several folks who can't have THC or elect to not have it . The real deal, full THC + CBD + all the other goodies, is almost always best medicine BUT:

I really would like to know your experiences with CBD products and migraines. Have CBD topicals on the temples helped?
CBD tincture under the tongue helped? Capsules? Or CBD rosin dabs???
Many are ok with "legal CBD" (under 0.3% THC) which I always recommend over CBD isolate products.

I'd like to think that CBD products would help for migraines......do they??
Thanks
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
My wife used the CBD tincture (Low dose THC) initially because that's all Florida would approve back then. It helped but not in any significant way. Just kind of took the edge off. She initially followed the dosage recommendation and then slowly increased it till she was almost tripling the recommendation. She didn't want to get high during the day because she watched our grandbaby so it's the only cannabis she allowed herself during the day.

Once she got approved for full spectrum she still continued to take the CBD tincture only during the day and once the grandbaby was picked up she'd use both high THC and CBD tincture.

Bottom Line...CBD alone helped minimally. We've learned that migraines have a myriad of causes (structural/nerves, environmental, etc.) so CBD might help some and do nothing for others. While CBD was better than nothing it wasn't helping with the nausea and lack of appetite the way full spectrum does.
 

virtualpurple

Well-Known Member
I would wonder if folks vaporizing CBD would have better luck getting relief, migraines tend to respond better when they’re hot hard and fast with treatments, and vaping CBD would be the fastest and most bioavailable way to up your levels in the bloodstream.
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
My understanding is that sublingual is the fit between eating and smoking/vaping and is actually absorbed via the lining under the tongue directly into the bloodstream. I'm not a doctor though....I just play one on FC ;)

Definitely agree that vaping is the fastest method though.....
 

virtualpurple

Well-Known Member
My understanding is that sublingual is the fit between eating and smoking/vaping and is actually absorbed via the lining under the tongue directly into the bloodstream. I'm not a doctor though....I just play one on FC ;)

Definitely agree that vaping is the fastest method though.....

My understanding with sublingual CBD is that yes, some will absorb into the bloodstream while the remaining will pass through the stomach when swallowed after, but the peak onset can still take around 45 minutes to an hour. And the absorption is still less than what your lungs will absorb.

The vaporized CBD will clear out of the system much faster, but I would hedge my bets on it being a more effective modality to abort the migraine.

Migraines just generally respond better to the methods that have the quickest onset of action. In the realm of healthcare that generally means medication delivered by IV or an intramuscular injection.

Hit the migraine hard and hit it fast. I would apply that principal here as well. While one could be waiting for their sublingual dose of CBD to take effect the migraine just has more time to become more painful and pronounced, and it’s much easier to get rid of a migraine in its early stages.

Probably it would be best to do both. Vape CBD as soon as you can and then use the sublingual method to extend your window of coverage.

Or to use the sublingual as part of a preventative regimen.

I do work in medicine but that doesn’t really hold much here, there’s just too Little definitive research about the true bioavailability of differing CBD compounds.

My understanding of treating migraines is definitely way greater than my understanding of CBDs mechanisms of action. Mileage may vary!
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Would also add that CBD and vaping full spectrum for us were not dependably effective as a rescue approach. We got lucky a time or two where vaping or using the tincture at onset of the migraine seriously lessened the pain or even caused the migraine to abate. Most of the benefit came from the preventative approach by dosing at set intervals whether needed or not.

Up until the occipital surgery finally gave my wife a cure/relief we had developed an approach where she would have her morning coffee when she first woke up and immediately start the CBD regimen along with other meds before the migraines were able to reach critical mass. My wife's migraines never stopped 24/7 but there were lulls in pain level just before waking up that lasted about an hour so we'd try and get in front of the full pain to come by dosing first thing on wake up and continue at set intervals. She also took her last dose before bed and if she woke up during the night would take another dose. We basically worked the safe approaches like CBD around the clock. Every little bit helped.....
 
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