Migraine Headache Help – 7 Simple Pain Relief Tips for Your Migraines

The best thing to do for a migraine is not to let it start!

There are many things we can do to prevent migraines, at least a lot of the time.  In the meantime, if you have a migraine, or feel one coming on, here are some tips to help you feel better.

As you know, aspirin generally doesn’t do a thing for a migraine headache.  However, there are 2 over-the-counter remedies that might help.

1.  Aleve (or its’ generic, naproxin) may work for you if you take a dose (1 or 2 tablets) at the onset–follow the directions on the label.  In 2019 or so, it became added to sumatriptan prescription medication.  That also caused the cost of the prescription to go up a ton, so just add it separately yourself if you take sumatriptan.

2.  Alka Seltzer may work, because it gives you a fully-dissolved dose of aspirin all at once.  Follow directions on the label.

Here are some other simple pain relief remedies to try:

1.  If the muscles on the tops of your shoulders are all “jammed up,” try a heating pad or heated cloth bag filled with rice to relax your shoulders.

2.  Lie down with an ice pack or cold pack comfortably positioned under your neck and the base of your skull.  Place a cold, wet cloth over your eyes.  If the cloth warms up, keep a basin of cool water next to your bed to refresh it.

If the cloth is drippy, that’s fine.  It’s actually good, because the cold drips will affect more of the nerves and muscles on your head.  Just put a plastic bag and towel under your head and shoulders to catch the drips.

3.  Don’t be shy about pushing or pulling on the muscles around your ears, temples, forehead, back of your head, or anywhere you can reach.  Sometimes the migraine is from the inside out, and sometimes it’s from the outside in.

4.  Pull your hair.  The soft tissues around your whole head get tight with a migraine.  By clasping your fingers in your hair, close to your head, and pulling outward, you can use your hair as little levers to help relax your scalp muscles.

5.  Try to straighten up.  Your heavy head pulls on the muscles around your neck and shoulders when it’s in front of your body and can cause head pain.  If you can lift your chest, your head will move back and be more over your body and take some of the strain off your muscles & nerves.  Do this when you DON’T have a headache or migraine, too.

Here’s hoping that at least one of these tips will help you have less migraine pain.  And I wrote an easy-to-use book for you to help get rid of or reduce those miserable headaches and migraines naturally.

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Uncommon Migraine Pain Relief Tips

Your head may actually pound. Light hurts your eyes. Every sound is noise and the noise is all too loud. You might even throw up.

You feel bad, and you look bad, too.

I really can’t think of anything worse than a really bad migraine.

A broken leg may keep you from moving but a migraine headache keeps you from being!

Migraines come in variations. Some are worse than others and some are merely horrible. They affect every system in your body.

Some people believe that headaches and migraines are closely related.

I’m one of those people. For years and years, I never had “just a headache.” Each time I started with a headache, I ended up with a migraine.

The best way to avoid migraines is to have perfect posture.

For those of us who are prone to headaches and migraines, any little strain on the muscles around our neck or head can, and will, cause pain.

Keeping a strong back, including the muscles in the back of your neck, helps hugely.

Learning how to have perfect posture will make a big difference in the frequency and severity of your head pain. It’s really important that you have good posture when you sit, when you stand, and you even need your neck and head propped correctly when you sleep.

Avoiding the foods that cause migraine pain for you helps, too. I had a friend who would get instant migraine when she ate an orange. After a while, she started avoiding oranges. Other times, it is not an instant reaction but may take a couple of days.

A varied and healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables helps for many reasons.

One of the reasons is that constipation can create conditions for a migraine. It may be the pressure from the packed intestines on the blood vessels in the abdomen that causes a migraine, because migraines are vascular headaches. That means they are related to what is happening with blood vessels.

“Keeping things moving” through your intestines with a good diet helps prevent migraine. You might consider taking additional fiber from a bottle to avoid constipation.

Also, many headache and other medicines actually cause constipation.

Avoiding a migraine in the first place is a much better strategy than trying to get rid of it after you are already hurting.

But, when a migraine sneaks up, or flat out attacks, despite your best efforts, here are a few tips to help ward off or lessen your pain.

* Ice. Ice the base of your skull. Use a cold pack and put yourself in the most comfortable position you can. Use a thin towel between your skin and the cold pack. You can ice and use the next tip at the same time.

* Cold. Place a cold, almost dripping wet, cloth on your forehead and eyes. You can flip it over as it warms up from your heat. You can keep a pan of ice water next to the bed to re-wet and re-chill the cloth. You can use put a plastic bag under a towel behind your head. That will keep your bed dry.

* Compress. Wrap your head in a long towel so that it is like a turban. Cover your eyes and ears with the turban, too. The idea is to compress your head, to squeeze it. This is comforting, blocking out noise and light, and helps reduce the pain.

* Alka Seltzer. Aspirin does not touch a migraine, but…two tablets of Alka Seltzer, if taken at the beginning of a migraine attack, often knocks out the migraine. I suspect that this happens because it is a large dose of aspirin all at once, rather than gradually.

You can find more information and ways to get rid of head pain naturally in Head Pain Natural Relief, at Amazon or your local library.

Check out Simple Strengthening for help to fix your posture. Good posture will help reduce your headaches.

“Because you deserve to feel better!”

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