When I ask my migraine patients how many headache days they have per month, they often underestimate the frequency and say “Oh, probably 3 or 4.” When I press them and ask if they are truly 100% headache-free the rest of the days, they often reply “Of course not, I have ‘normal headaches’ most of the time, but I only have migraines 3 or 4 days per month.” What is a normal headache? I ask. “You know, the headaches everyone gets,” they reply. When I proceed to explain that there is no such thing as a “normal headache,” that most people do not have regular headaches, they are shocked. Sure, headaches may be common, they may be mild, but, by definition, they are not “normal.” A headache is an abnormal state of pain. Each type of headache, in fact, has a specific name and specific diagnostic criteria, such as the most common type, tension-type headache, and second most common type, migraine.
Migraine patients have often lived with headaches so long that it has become their normal. They don’t know what it’s like not to get headaches. So, what are these milder and more frequent headaches that migraine sufferers experience? They are 9 times out of 10 migraines, too. When migraine sufferers live with migraines long enough, the headaches sometimes lose their characteristic severe throbbing quality, and evolve into a background low-grade headache that is present much of the time. This is in medical circles referred to as chronic migraine, which refers to when migraine headaches occur greater than 50% of the time.
So why does it matter to relabel these so-called “normal headaches” as migraines? Because if we don’t define headaches properly, we can’t treat them properly. And if we don’t treat them properly, they become more frequent, and the vicious cycle continues.
So, is it possible for a migraine sufferer to live a headache-free life? Absolutely! It is often a long and arduous process, but with the right combination of preventative and abortive headache treatments, eventually migraines can improve dramatically.
I recommend you speak with a headache specialist to start this journey as soon as possible. One part of your regimen you can start right away is natural supplementation for migraine prevention. Several natural supplements have been demonstrated to reduce migraine frequency in clinical trials. I always start by recommending natural supplements to my patients, and I’ve combined all the evidence-based and safe natural supplements into one convenient capsule called MigraineMD.
-Neurologist and Co-Founder of NeuroNaturals