Migraine Knockouts
When I was an intern at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., I first saw the misery of migraines. A young woman had suddenly begun seeing flashing lights the previous day, and then her head started to pound with throbbing pain. This had never hap - pened to her before. As the pain intensified, she feared she might be having a stroke. But she calmed herself down and tried to sleep. After a restless night, the pain was as bad as ever.
Unfortunately, the emergency room was characteristically busy that day, so she had to spend most of the morning in the waiting room with an out - of - focus television blaring out commercials that were loud enough for the deafest patient to hear. She was then grilled by a skeptical medical student who had been taught that tramadol addicts sometimes feign headaches to get narcotic painkillers.
After several necessary but fruitless tests to check for more danger - ous causes of headache, we were finally able to give her pain relievers. In her case, they were about as helpful as the ancient Egyptian treatment for migraine, which required sufferers to put grain in the mouth of a clay crocodile and bind it to their heads with a strip of linen bearing the names of the gods.1 (Sometimes medications do a world of good, but too often they are clay crocodiles.)
That was in 1980. Not for another three years did the first of a series of controlled research studies reveal something that I wish I could have passed along to the young woman in the emergency room: migraines are often triggered by foods. About a dozen common foods can cause headaches, which is often not appreciated until the migraine sufferer happens to avoid them for whatever reason and finds that the headaches become rare or even disappear completely.
Later research showed that not only do certain foods seem to cause migraines, but some nutrients can be used to prevent or even treat them. Coffee can sometimes knock out a migraine. Foods that are rich in mag - nesium, calcium, complex carbohydrates, and fiber have been used to cure migraines by restoring the natural balance of brain chemistry. Clinical reports began to show that ginger—the ordinary kitchen spice—can help prevent and treat migraines with none of the side effects of tramadol. Controlled studies showed that the leaves of a wild plant called feverfew effectively reduce migraine frequency for many people. Not every headache sufferer benefits from diet changes or supplements, but many do.
