Migraine

Q. I was surprised to read in your column that gumbo soup can help a headache. I thought I was the only one, besides my niece, who used this remedy. She has suffered from frequent headaches all her life, but we never talked about it until she came to visit me. When she told me Campbell's Gumbo Soup cures her headaches, I could hardly believe it. I had discovered this myself quite by accident many years ago. This cure is so easy, I've tried to pass it on to friends over the years. Most people don't believe me and ignore the advice.

The many people who suffer from migraine headaches often seek quiet, dark places to ride them out. But there are effective means of preventing them, shortening their duration and even stopping them. There are established medications and lifestyle changes sufferers can employ, and even some new ones to try, says Dr. Michael Sellman, chief of neurology at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. How common are migraines, and who usually suffers from them? Migraine headaches are the most frequent neurology problem that I see in my office.

Q: My 17-year-old daughter has bad migraine headaches. Recently, her doctor gave her an injection of a new drug called sumitriptan. It worked great! Although it comes prepackaged in a device that allows the medicine to be injected by her, she panics at the thought of doing it and we have had to give her the shots ourselves. Any idea on what we can do?A: Since sumitriptan is not currently available in a pill form, we can certainly understand the urgency you and your daughter feel in her learning how to administer this effective medication herself.

Last week after "sting" video surfaced of counselors at the Michele Bachmann's Minnesota clinic appearing to practice a discredited form of 'therapy" intended to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals, I predicted the film would haunt her on the campaign trail. That haunting has already begun -- and it is only one of several problems she is now having to contend with. Once the video made it onto ABC  News last week, Bachmann was under fire. The video, which was shotwith hidden cameras by a gay advocacy group,  appeared in reports by veteran investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

For Trudy Stanley, the pain begins in her eyes. From there it travels swiftly to the top and back of her skull, causing her head to throb and pound violently. If it's one of her "incapacitating" migraine headaches -- which occur two or three times a week -- she'll soon start vomiting.Sometimes Ms. Stanley's pain is relieved by lying down in a dark room or getting an injection of ergotamine (a commonly used migraine drug) or having a belt tied tightly around her forehead. Occasionally nothing works at all."

Last year, Kevin Marsh had an operation to close a small hole in his heart. He'd had a stroke, and doctors worried that the opening could increase his chances of having another. Since then, Marsh has not had another stroke. The procedure had another benefit, too: He no longer suffers from the debilitating migraine headaches that had troubled him for decades. "The change is incredible," says the 50-year-old, who restores vintage cars in Salt Lake City. "I have not had one headache since the surgery."

The first time Howard County inventor Dr. Robert Fischell experienced a migraine symptom known as an aura, he had no clue what was happening. Images of dancing circles crowded his vision, and when the circles grew larger, he thought he was about to have a stroke. Suddenly, the aura stopped and to Fischell's surprise, and relief, no ailment followed. "Oh, thank God," he said. Now the maker of the first implantable insulin pump, the rechargeable pacemaker and various coronary stents has invented a hand-held device that targets the aura en route to stopping a migraine - a painful, sometimes debilitating headache disorder - before it starts.

Philip O'Carroll was 9 and out playing with friends when the vision first appeared: bright filaments floating before his eyes in a shimmering sea of light. "I thought that either I was mad or touched by God," says O'Carroll, a neurologist in Newport Beach, Calif. A similar blindness struck David Kudrow for the first time when he was a teen-ager and visiting his grandmother. "She disappeared in front of me," says Kudrow, also a neurologist, who runs the California Medical Clinic for Headache in Santa Monica, Calif.

Did you know?-- Chocolate and peanut butter are among foods that may trigger migraine headaches, according to the National Headache Foundation.

I suffered from migraine headaches for more than 10 years. I saw several neurologists, but my intense headaches forced me to take early retirement. In the fall of 2002, I went from three headaches a week to almost nonstop. That November, I had only three days without headaches. I took migraine medications like Frova, Maxalt and Imitrex, but I mostly lay in bed in a dark room. I was at my wits' end. Then my family doctor suggested a gluten-free diet. Gradually my headaches became less frequent, and after several months I was 98 percent headache-free.

New York Jets owner Woody Johnson says wide receiver Braylon Edwards has let himself and the team down as a result of his drunken-driving arrest Tuesday morning. Johnson said Thursday that he has spoken to Edwards "three or four times" since and told him his actions were "not acceptable, Braylon. I'm disappointed. " Edwards was arraigned Tuesday on drunken-driving charges after a breath test showed he had a blood-alcohol level twice the legal threshold when he was stopped on Manhattan's West Side, prosecutors said.

Jake Delhomme still can't trade his walking boot for cleats. Cleveland's starting quarterback, who injured his right ankle in his Week 1 debut with the Browns, has not been cleared to practice and it appears he will be sidelined for this Sunday's game at M&T Bank Stadium and possibly next week as well. Browns coach Eric Mangini has been intentionally vague about Delhomme's status, and the team has given no specifics about the severity of the ankle injury, which the 35-year-old suffered while throwing a costly interception in the first half of the opener at Tampa Bay. If Delhomme can't play, and that appears the case, backup Seneca Wallace will make his second straight start Sunday against the Ravens.

Thank you for writing about taking vitamin B-2 on a daily basis to prevent migraine headaches. I have suffered from them for 17 years and have been to many doctors, including two neurologists, two ear, nose and throat doctors and an acupuncturist. I had sinus scans and have tried many medications that never worked. I started taking the vitamin B-2, and I couldn't believe how much it helped. I may get an occasional headache now, once a month if that. I used to get a couple every week. I am thrilled to finally be free of headaches for the most part and have told my doctor to please share this with other patients with frequent migraine headaches.

Although estimates vary, about 28 million American adults - or about 13 percent of the adult U.S. population - suffer from migraines, says Dr. Jason Rosenberg, director of the Johns Hopkins Headache Center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The chronic disorder affects more women than men and can vary from occasional symptoms to frequently occurring, debilitating pain. How is a migraine defined? We now think of migraines as a chronic disorder of a hyper-excitable brain, and the symptom of this brain hyper-excitability is intermittent sickness, including headache.

In the worst of times, when horrific headaches drive him to a darkened bedroom for days, Greg Giovanazzi struggles toward the light. Brow knitted, eyes clenched, he wades through the pain to think of stuff that matters - family, friends and job. It helps him ride out the migraines that have hounded him for decades, said Giovanazzi, the volleyball coach at Johns Hopkins. "Coaching motivates me to get out of bed, manage my depression and start the healing process," he said. "It gives me reason to continue.

The first time Howard County inventor Dr. Robert Fischell experienced a migraine symptom known as an aura, he had no clue what was happening. Images of dancing circles crowded his vision, and when the circles grew larger, he thought he was about to have a stroke. Suddenly, the aura stopped and to Fischell's surprise, and relief, no ailment followed. "Oh, thank God," he said. Now the maker of the first implantable insulin pump, the rechargeable pacemaker and various coronary stents has invented a hand-held device that targets the aura en route to stopping a migraine - a painful, sometimes debilitating headache disorder - before it starts.

Q.Thirty years ago I was in an accident that resulted in whiplash. Ten years later I started having migraine headaches. Now, these headaches bother me every day.I have seen a lot of doctors, including neurologists and neurosurgeons. The medication I have been using for years is Wigraine. It is the only one that gives me relief, although sometimes I need four tablets for a headache.My new doctor is very nasty about this prescription. He won't let me have more than 10 tablets a week. He says this is all I get, period.

Two national surveys -- one on hope, one on headaches -- raise some intriguing possibilities. One survey, carried out by researchers at the University of Kansas, found that hope plays a surprisingly large role in helping people succeed in school, on their jobs and in coping with tragic illness. The second, by doctors at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, found that, contrary to popular belief, migraine headaches plague the poor more than the rich.Both studies were the largest of their kind ever undertaken.

Sixteen years ago, Steve Zatuchni was a computer sales manager, making a six-figure income. Then all hell broke loose in his brain. He became severely depressed, to the point that he could no longer work. He slept up to 18 hours a day, and when he was awake, felt so miserable he wished he were asleep. He tried dozens of medicines, in myriad combinations. Nothing worked. Distraught, he tried to kill himself several times. Then, in 2004, he enrolled in a study of an experimental therapy called transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS -- a noninvasive treatment that sends magnetic pulses into the brain.

Is it possible that suffering through years of migraine headaches actually might have a beneficial effect on the brain? A provocative new study has raised that improbable prospect after finding that longtime, middle-aged migraine sufferers showed less cognitive decline and memory loss over a period of 12 years than a group of migraine-free adults. Researchers can't explain what could be a silver lining in the agonizing cloud that is migraine, but it's possible that the physiological changes that accompany the headaches might protect brain cells over the long haul.