Success Story: Alicia

I’m Alicia and I’m a 32-year-old living in Dallas, Tx who develops migraine-friendly recipes (check out my website at The Dizzy Cook and over on Instagram too). I started having terrible vertigo over 2 years ago after I got back from a trip around Asia. It started with a fleeting lightheaded feeling and slowly morphed into being all encompassing vertigo.

I felt like I was moving when I was sitting perfectly still. My eyes couldn’t focus properly and I could barely keep my head up. Sometimes I felt like I was walking on clouds or incredibly drunk.

It got to the point where I had to take short term disability while doctor after doctor was perplexed. They told me it was “just stress” or a perilymph fistula and I would need to get surgery.

After months of not leaving the house, my husband drove me to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona to meet with an ENT. He diagnosed me with vestibular migraine, something the 7 other doctors I saw never mentioned. When I came back to Dallas I sought out a neuro-otologist, a neurologist that treats inner ear disorders.

Since I was considering having kids in the future, we started on a low dose of ativan and timolol eye drops rather than a preventative. It’s not recommended to be on benzodiazepines as it can surprise your vestibular system, but within a short time I was able to wean off the ativan successfully.

I also began taking Magnesium Glycinate, Vitamin D, and B2 vitamins daily. Within time I added vestibular therapy and enrolled in a beginner’s ballet class. While I felt incredibly awkward at first, all those relevés slowly helped me regain my balance. I got better at staying on my toes for longer!

What really pushed me to about 95% was the Heal Your Headache diet. It’s an elimination diet from the Heal Your Headache book by David Buchholz and the John’s Hopkins Headache Centre. I strictly followed the diet for about 4 months and started to reintroduce foods. At one point I thought it was stupid and I was fed up with all the rules. I tried yogurt, a food I had previously eaten every day, and everything around me immediately started moving. I couldn’t believe something I had eaten every day was secretly triggering my migraines. I’ve been able to add a few things back in, but I find the diet is a great way to help me prevent my migraines naturally.

I make sure to do some type of exercise 5 times a week, practice mindfulness, drink at least 75-100oz of water and take my supplements daily. I believe a combination of all of this helped me get my life back. While I still have a bad day or two every month, I can work again, drive again, and even enjoy happy hour with friends. It does get better and there is hope, it just requires finding the right combination specific for you and the willingness to try anything and everything. While I can’t say I’m happy this happened to me, I can definitely say it made me a much stronger person.

Success Story: Kristie

Kristie has turned her life around and is now 1-year migraine free! I’m so excited to share her story with you all. Don’t forget to check out her Instagram HopeVsHeadaches page too. She is one inspiring lady!

“Hi, my name is Kristie and five years ago I was travelling the world as an air hostess living the dream. This was until I became bed bound with back to back chronic migraines that ruined my life. As a result, I lost my job and I thought my life was over.

Initially, I tried all the traditional migraine medications, preventatives and treatments possible. You name it, I had tried it from nerve blocks, botox injections, beta blockers, trigger point injections and more, unfortunately with no success.

My turning point came when I was told at an appointment "you will just have to learn to live with the pain". Not a chance I told myself.

So, from that day onwards, everything changed.

I started with adopting a completely new mindset, one that was initially taught to me by the book "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne. Here I learnt about the law of attraction and what you think about most you attract. So, from here, I changed my thoughts and as a result, my world began to change.

I then become a student of self-taking every single opportunity to educate myself on all areas of health and healing.

I read countless books, learnt to meditate and visualise a healthy future for myself daily, re-evaluated my beliefs around healing, taught myself about nutrition and how to use food as medicine through adopting a clean whole foods plant-based diet, learnt to love myself exactly where I was, prioritized self-care practices and simply tried to find more balance in my life in order to let my body heal naturally.

Through patience, a positive mindset and the courage to step outside of my comfort zone I am now pleased to say that I am now 1 year completely migraine free!

By taking my health back into my own hands everything changed.

And do you want to know what the funny thing is? Pharmaceutical and western medicine had nothing to do with it so it proves that YOU have the power to get well all by yourself.

As a result of my new passion for all things health, I qualified as a Health Coach at The Institute of Integrative Nutrition so I am now able to coach, guide and help others begin their own healing journey too. I now have a new life with more passion and purpose than I ever imagined was possible.

I really hope my story inspires you and next time a doctor tells you that "migraine is a neurological disorder with no cure", don't believe them. It can be done. YOU CAN DO IT!”

Success Story: Abi

I often think there are not enough success stories being shared in the Migraine community. People do find treatments that work for them. People do get relief from their daily pain. People do get their life back!

⠀⠀⠀⠀
I want to share with you beautiful Abi’s story.

⠀⠀⠀⠀
“ My headaches started in 2015 a few days after I returned from my 3rd trip to Mexico. My GP diagnosed me with sinusitis and left it as that. The headaches were twice a week at this point. As months went by my headaches began to increase to daily and they began to last the whole day with a migraine twice a month. I went back to my GP and was prescribed amitriptyline (these just helped me sleep at night and didn't help my headaches), I was also prescribed propanolol which didn't help either.

After months of perseverance at the GP I finally got a referral to neurology at my local hospital. I saw Mr Panicker from The Walton Centre (Liverpool) who diagnosed me with chronic daily headaches / chronic daily migraines.

⠀⠀⠀⠀
He asked me to try a trial of nortriptiline (which is similar to amitriptyline but without the sleepiness side effect). I tried that for 3 months before going back to my GP to try the alternative of pizotifen. These gave me crazy nightmare dreams and I couldn't continue. I went back to see my consultant in Feb 2017 who suggested we tried nerve block injections. 

In April I had my 1st set. He injected 2 injections into my head on each side at the very back above my neck. They stung and I slowly felt my head going numb. The noise wasn't that nice as you could hear the liquid going in but It was all worth it I knew. The solution he injected helped me for 6-7 months with no headaches at all!⠀⠀

⠀⠀
In October I felt the headaches returning daily and I called up the Walton Centre who booked me in again. I had them yesterday and now today my head just feels like it's bruised but I know it's worth it. For me this has been the best help I have received and for me to suffer 0 headaches for several months is amazing as you can imagine!”