Migraine headaches are especially debilitating and sometimes include nausea and vomiting. I recently treated two teenagers with “Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome”. One patient was a 16-year-old woman and the other a 14-year-old man. Both suffered from frequent migraines, nausea, and vomiting.often enough to miss school for days at a time. One patient, missing weeks at a time, required an in-home tutor. After multiple examinations by conventional doctors, nothing was found in the GI tract, so they were given migraine and anti-emetic drugs (to prevent vomiting). My male patient was even convinced to have surgery and have his appendix removed! Both patients continued to suffer from the same headaches, nausea, and vomiting. Both patients had insomnia and circadian rhythm problems. And over time, because the doctors couldn’t find anything, they assumed that my patients were lying or psychologically disturbed; so they prescribed counseling and powerful antidepressants to no avail.
So when I took my patients, they were in bad shape. Worse yet, other professionals assumed they were “crazy.” The first thing I did was fix his diet. Both patients ate too much sugar and carbohydrate-rich foods. Over time, this led to hormonal imbalances and poor digestion. Society generally accepts the idea that these foods are the acceptable norm, but their toxicity is insidious. Sugar, in my opinion, should be considered a drug. It gives you a “sugar rush” by stimulating the same brain receptors as heroin, and then causes you to crash and burn in a “carb stupor.” In order to feel better and less irritable again, we want more. We’re finally acknowledging how this long-term addiction leads to diabetes and degenerative brain disorders, but it’s still common and “acceptable” in the standard American diet. The body needs the right building blocks to heal, and these patients just weren’t getting them.
At the same time, he needed to improve the state of their digestive system so that they would really absorb the good food that they began to eat. Digestion begins with chewing and enzymes in saliva. It then travels down the esophagus to the stomach, where it requires an acidic environment to break down protein. The proper combination of bile from the gallbladder and other enzymes from the pancreas allows nutrients to be absorbed in the small intestine. Holistic practitioners have known for many years that the intestinal flora is an important symbiotic organism within us. Both patients had a history of antibiotic use that altered their flora. Asking patients about their stool is an often overlooked component among clinicians, especially when the patient is there for a migraine. By providing these patients with supplements, I helped them restore their digestive ability to absorb food properly.
Finally, we need to look at the spinal cord, with the nerves that go in and out between the vertebrae. This is the two-way communication between the brain and the rest of the body. If the vertebrae do not move correctly, communication is hampered. The situation becomes like that of a general inability to communicate with your troops. The brain and digestive organs do not cooperate with each other. This is a potential cause of malabsorption, but it can also be the result of a poor diet. If we think of these spinal nerves as circuit breakers, then if an organ becomes overloaded (from poor diet and lack of nutrition), it shuts off, like a safety valve or a naughty child to prevent further damage. However, this also acts as a barrier to healing. So the final piece of the puzzle was to address this issue by fixing the structural alignment of both patients.
Several elements play a factor in recovery time. Changing the diet takes several months of adjustment with minor adjustments along the way. The age of the patient also plays an important role. Younger people respond faster to treatment than older people. Patients also vary in compliance. Some, desperate to turn their lives around after years of misery, adapt overnight with great success. Others, wary of “New Age” medicine, and longing for the convenience of a pill, need much more compelling scientific evidence. They tend to be more reluctant and rationalize, almost sabotaging their own recovery. When these two patients were able to return to school every day, attend school dances, and lead normal lives again, the parents were relieved as well. That’s all the evidence I need.