The Magnesium Solution for Migraine Headaches How to Use Magnesium to Prevent and Relieve Migraine and Cluster Headaches Naturally Jay S. Cohen, MD

ISBN: 0-7570-0256-0 Length: 96 Pages Size: 4 x 7.5-inch Format: Mass Paperback Category: Health / Migraines Price: $5.95 US / $8.95 CAN Availability: In Print Click below for: Synopsis • Contents Introduction • Reviews

Synopsis

Over 30 million people across North America suffer from migraine headaches. Some use medications to dull the ache, while others choose to simply bear the pain. Over the years, a number of drugs have been developed to treat migraines; however, these treatments don’t work for everyone. Furthermore, they come with a high risk of dangerous side effects. Fortunately, Dr. Jay S. Cohen--physician, medical researcher, and professor of medicine--has discovered an alternative. Magnesium, an effective drug-free option, offers a proven way to not only prevent migraines, but also stop them in their tracks.

The Magnesium Solution for Migraine Headaches is a direct result of Dr. Cohen’s research. This concise easy-to-understand guide explains what a migraine is; details how magnesium relaxes the nerves and blood vessels involved in migraines; and shows how this supplement can play a key role in preventing and treating migraine headaches. The book also describes why magnesium is as effective as drugs, as well as safer and less expensive; what type of magnesium works best; and how much magnesium should be taken to prevent or stop migraines. All of the information is backed by relevant scientific studies and interviews with leading experts in the field.

For those who are looking for a safe and effective approach to the prevention and treatment of migraine and cluster headaches, Dr. Cohen prescribes a proven natural remedy in The Magnesium Solution for Migraine Headaches.

Jay S. Cohen, MD is an associate professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He has published numerous research articles, as well as articles in Newsweek, Life Extension magazine, and Bottom Line Health, and is also the author of Over Dose: The Case Against the Drug Companies. Dr. Cohen and his family live in Del Mar, California.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface

Introduction

1. Magnesium, Migraines, and Cluster Headaches
Migraines: A Common and Severe Malady
Blood Vessels, Migraines, and Magnesium
Magnesium--The Essential Element for Normal Body Functioning
The Problem with Prescription Drugs for Migraine Headaches

2. Magnesium Deficiency and Migraine Headaches
The Most Common Mineral Deficiency
The Evidence for Magnesium in the Prevention of Migraine Headaches
The Evidence for Magnesium in the Treatment of Acute Migraine Headaches
The Failure to Identify Magnesium Deficiency

3. Magnesium Deficiencies In Migraine-Prone Populations
Women, Migraines, and Magnesium
Children, Migraines, and Magnesium
Men, Cluster Headaches, and Magnesium

4. How to Use Magnesium to Help Prevent and Treat
Migraine and Cluster Headaches
Magnesium: A Nutrient and a Medication
Treating Acute Migraines With Magnesium
Preventing Migraines Headaches with Magnesium and Other Non-drug Therapies
How Much Magnesium To Take
Using Magnesium Successfully

Conclusion

References
About the Author
Index

Introduction

A basic principle of good medical care is to use the safest medicines first when treating any disorder. Yet, mainstream medicine frequently relies on potent prescription drugs when other, safer, natural methods are all that's needed. This book is about a safe, proven-effective, natural, nondrug alternative that can be very helpful for people who get migraine and cluster headaches, a substance that is widely available and inexpensive, that provides many benefits for the body, yet is overlooked by most doctors--magnesium.

To say that migraine and cluster headaches are painful is an understatement. Most people get tension headaches, and they assume that migraine headaches aren't much different. But migraine sufferers know that migraines are quantum beyond common tension headaches. I know, too, because in the late 1980s I began getting migraines that forced me to retreat to my bedroom, turn off the lights, stop any noise, and place an ice pack on my forehead and pray for sleep. I didn't get many migraines, maybe a handful a year, but that was enough to know how truly disabling migraine headaches can be.

I don't get migraines anymore. I haven't had one since 1999. I'm fortunate. Today, twenty-five million American adults and children--18.5 million women and 6.5 million men--suffer from migraine headaches. Cluster headaches affect another 5 million people.

Experts know that migraine and cluster headaches are among the most severe forms of pain known to humankind. Prescription medications are helpful for some people, but they aren't very helpful or cause intolerable side effects for others. I never got enough migraines to seek medical treatment, and I'm glad I didn't. As magnesium caused my erythromelalgia to gradually disappear, so too did my migraines. When I spread the word about magnesium's benefits to other members of our erythromelalgia group, I began receiving interesting reports about other improvements occurring in some members. Magnesium's benefits weren't limited to my rare disorder, but appeared to benefit other vascular disorders as well.

In May 2001, for example, I received an e-mail from Laura, who had contacted our group on behalf of her mother, who was suffering terribly from erythromelalgia. At the end of the e-mail about her mother's status, Laura added as an afterthought:

“Incidentally, I started taking magnesium myself a couple of months ago. I was hoping it might stop my migraines which I've suffered from for seventeen years. I haven't had a migraine since--which is quite clearly, I believe, due to the magnesium. I've tried various migraine prophylactic drugs before with no improvement at all, so this is VERY good!”

I asked Laura for additional details. She explained that she was a teacher, and her stress at work was very high. Laura's migraines were variable in frequency. Some weeks she'd have as many as four migraines, other weeks she'd have one or none. Laura had tried several prescription drugs, but none prevented the migraines and only one partially lessened the pain if she took it quickly enough.

Laura explained: “I was prompted to start taking magnesium by the number of unsolicited comments from people who, regardless of whether magnesium helped their erythromelalgia symptoms, mentioned that their headaches or migraines had decreased or stopped.” When Laura wrote to me, she hadn't had any migraines for several months despite the usual stresses. This was an highly unusual, an excellent response, especially since so many other therapies had failed to help her. Indeed, because Laura hadn't responded to drugs previously, and because I never mentioned that magnesium might relieve Laura's migraines, I doubted that this was a placebo response.

Laura's next e-mail contained another surprise. “Let me tell you about my friend who gets very severe migraines.” Laura wrote that he was fifty-six years old and had suffered from severe migraines his entire life. “He was often home from work sick,” Laura explained. “His migraines were so bad that he was frequently incapacitated by excruciating headaches and vomiting. Several times he's been admitted to the hospital emergency department for treatment. Since starting magnesium about six weeks ago, he has only had two migraines, both of which were relatively mild and brief compared with his normal ones. He can't remember ever going for such a long time with so few migraines. We're only a sample of two, but we're both convinced of the effectiveness of magnesium in our cases.”

I would have been skeptical of Laura's reports a few years earlier, but in that time I not only experienced my own amazing response to magnesium, but also broadened my research and learned that since the 1960s, more than a thousand articles on magnesium had been published in medical journals. This was reassuring because when considering any treatment, whether a natural substance or a drug, you should consider the evidence. Is it convincing? Does the treatment make sense? Have studies been done? What do experts say? As you will see in this book, the evidence in all of these regards is convincing for magnesium.

Scientific evidence is important, but as every medical textbook teaches, the ultimate test is how well a treatment works for individual patients. My response, and Laura's and her friend's, to magnesium didn't seem like a coincidence, and the evidence supported my conclusion. Magnesium stabilizes nerve and blood vessel functioning, the two main players in vascular abnormalities such as migraine and cluster headaches, as well as in high blood pressure, Raynaud's phenomenon, and erythromelalgia. Magnesium is essential for normal vascular functioning. Blood vessels required magnesium to operate properly. Deficiencies of magnesium are common and linked to many diseases. One of these is migraine headaches (to avoid constant reputation, I will use the broad term “migraines” to include both migraine and cluster headaches unless stated otherwise).

Yet even if a treatment is effective, is it safe? As we've seen again and again in recent years, many promising drugs with outstanding research have proved ineffective for some patients and/or toxic for others, necessitating disuse or outright withdrawal. Magnesium's safety has been established over six decades. Today, magnesium is commonly used in cardiac care units for heart arrhythmias. It is used intravenously in maternity wards to treat the dangerous effects of eclampsia in pregnant women.

The unfortunately irony is that despite magnesium's long use in these medically high-risk situations and a body of scientific evidence on magnesium spanning more than half a century, few medical schools teach doctors anything about magnesium's value for everyday conditions like migraine headaches and high blood pressure. As a result, most doctors aren't aware of magnesium's effectiveness for these common, often difficult-to-treat disorders. Yet, magnesium has proven its value not only in studies, but in the offices of doctors who have learned about it. If you go to a conference on integrative medicine and ask the brightest and best doctors about magnesium, they will relate hundreds of experiences of using magnesium with excellent results.

Nevertheless, not everyone with migraine or cluster headaches responds to magnesium. Magnesium isn't a panacea. The migraine syndrome is complex, as are all vascular disorders. No one treatment works for everyone. Some migraine sufferers require prescription drugs and benefit highly from them. But why start with expensive drugs with frequent, sometimes serious side effects when safer, natural methods might do? And even when prescription drugs are needed, so too might magnesium if the goal is to have your blood vessels function optimally. Yet, few mainstream physicians know about magnesium, so they rarely recommend it to their patients.

If you have been prescribed prescription drugs for your migraines, yet not told about magnesium, you have been denied your right of informed consent. The American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics states that you must be given “enough information to enable an intelligent choice.” You also must be told about “therapeutic alternatives consistent with good medical practice.” Magnesium is certainly a therapeutic alternative consistent with good medical practice. I would argue that magnesium is a better, safer therapy that should be considered before resorting to expensive, side-effect prone drugs.

The Magnesium Solution for Migraine Headaches is intended to balance to patients' and doctors' awareness of the possibilities. This book provides you and your doctor with all of the information you need to understand: 1. why magnesium is can be very helping in preventing and/or treating migraine and cluster headaches; 2. what you can expect from taking magnesium; 3. and how to take magnesium successfully. This is vital information not only because, unlike drugs, magnesium has virtually no side effects at proper amounts, but magnesium also exerts hundreds of other important effects that are required for the healthy functioning of all of your cells and body systems. Magnesium is a key player in the normal functioning of nerves, muscles, blood vessels, bone, and the heart. So when you take magnesium, you not only may get relief from your migraine headaches, but also provide every cell and system in your body with a nutrient it needs.

Reviews

"The insights in this book can transform the lives of migraine sufferers."

--The Bond Effect, September 2004

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