It can turn a day into a nightmare. Disrupt concentration and sleep. You may fall asleep and wake up to the pain it causes when the attack continues. And if it mainly affects adults, it does not spare children either. Migraine, 11 million people suffer from it in France. And many resort to self-medication and the use of painkillers to soothe the pain of a migraine. Sometimes without success.
So, some people try natural methods to relieve the signs of migraine. But do they really work? On the occasion of World Migraine Solidarity Day this Friday, 20 Minutes looks at these natural solutions.
No effective curative treatment
Migraine is characterized by “a headache of variable intensity, but often strong, recurring, pulsatile and most often unilateral, indicates Health Insurance. It is a benign illness, but it affects the quality of life, with an impact on emotional relationships and school or professional activities. Often, the consequences of migraine are underestimated by those close to patients.”
In practice, migraine “is sometimes accompanied by nausea and vomiting, frequently associated with facial paleness,” she explains. And is accompanied by “difficulty tolerating noise (phonophobia), light (photophobia) or smells (osmophobia)”.
In France, migraine affects “12% of adults and 5 to 10% of children,” says Health Insurance. Women are two to three times more affected than men. A third of patients have never consulted and resort to self-medication. And to date, “no effective long-term curative treatment has yet been put on the market.” Hence the growing enthusiasm for alternative methods.
A foot bath in hot water
Among the anti-migraine tips and tricks put forward on TikTok and Instagram by influencers sometimes with, and often without, medical training, many publications praise the benefits of bathing your feet in hot water. “If you have a migraine and want to get rid of it quickly (…), just take some hot water, the hottest you can stand, and soak your feet in it,” suggests an American Internet user.
A post taken up and commented on by Dr Kunal Sood, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in the United States, who has 1.5 million subscribers on Instagram. “If you suffer from migraines, here’s a tip to try that has no side effects and may help: soaking your feet in warm water,” he advises. How does it work? “This dilates the blood vessels in the feet, which reduces blood pressure in the head, which relieves pressure in the blood vessels causing the migraine, reducing pain.”
As with all natural solutions, results are mixed. Among Internet users, some have tried this method of hydrotherapy with success and saw the pain associated with their migraine reduced after a foot bath in very hot water. When others saw no improvement. Last point of vigilance to emphasize: although it is recommended in many online videos to use the hottest water you can stand, be careful not to risk burning!
Drink a coffee
Natural remedy popular with many migraine sufferers: coffee. As long as you know how to take it at the right time, and in the right quantities. When migraine is caused by vasodilation, or swelling of the blood vessels of the brain, the pain can be relieved by coffee, caffeine conversely having a vasoconstriction effect. Thus, taken at the start of an attack, coffee can calm migraine pain for some people. Caffeine is also included in the composition of several medications intended to relieve migraine episodes.
Be careful, this is a double-edged solution: consumed in high doses, coffee can have a counterproductive effect for migraine sufferers. Those who consume several cups first thing in the morning on weekdays frequently report migraine episodes on weekends, linked to later drinking, or even not drinking at all, of coffee.
And according to a study published in June 2023 in the journal Naturea team of researchers from Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine demonstrated that consuming more than 400 mg of caffeine per day increased the risk of migraines and severe headaches by 42%. .
Use acupuncture
It is an age-old discipline from traditional Chinese medicine, and it would be effective in relieving migraine: acupuncture, which consists of placing needles on specific meridians. Treatment that would sustainably reduce migraine attacks and symptoms.
The discipline is taken very seriously by research. A few months ago, the Nîmes University Hospital launched the ACU-BRAIN study, “the objective of which is to understand the changes in the brain and in pain induced by acupuncture”. A program involving the creation of two groups, one receiving acupuncture and the other a placebo, to determine the effectiveness of treating migraine with acupuncture.
Previous work has also confirmed the effectiveness of this technique. In 2016, a meta-analysis conducted by the Cochrane Library demonstrated that in migraine patients, acupuncture could reduce the frequency of attacks from 6 days to 3.5 days per month. A result considered very satisfactory: in comparison, the sole use of medication reduced the frequency of attacks from 6 days to 4 days per month.