Sam was driving through the countryside when his nightmare began.
“I remember becoming aware of a rapidly increasing pain around my left eye and a sensation of increasing pressure in my head. I was forced to pull the car over, close my eyes, and mutter casual expletives to myself waiting for it to subside.”
A few hours later, the pain hit again … only worse. This time, it was “sheer and sudden agony.” The pain doubled him over. He fell to the floor, rolled around “clutching and squeezing my skull.”
Sam felt like “something inside my head had clearly just exploded.”
The pain was so bad, he vomited and called for an ambulance.
Sam had never suffered a headache like this before. And yet, here he was being rushed to the hospital.
Believe it or not, this is happening more and more. Hospitals are reporting a substantial increase in headache-related ER visits every spring.
One 60-year-old grandmother said, “I woke up one day last week with a blinding headache and unable to keep down any food – or even water. I lay in bed all day (most unusual for me!). And I'm not a ‘headachy’ person at all.”
So what is it that’s causing this mysterious rise in headache attacks? One clue lies in the fact that these attacks are occurring in spring.
Is It Allergies?
Spring is allergy season. So doctors originally thought these headaches were caused by allergies. This makes sense. Airborne allergens are a known trigger for migraines. And these allergens have become more widespread in the last decade due to changing weather.
But there’s more to the story. Headaches can be caused by hormonal changes. They can be caused by stress. They can be caused by food sensitivities.
It seems like there’s a perfect storm that’s causing these spikes in headache attacks.
Whatever the triggers, I have good news for you. There’s a remedy that stops a severe headache no matter what triggers it. And it’s not a drug.
The proof comes from a study published in the prestigious journal Neurology. To conduct this study, researchers evaluated 20 different treatments for migraines.
The treatments included several different types of NSAIDs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, and others. They included estrogen replacement. And they included the alternative treatments magnesium, riboflavin, CoQ10, omega-3 fatty acids, hyperbaric oxygen, and the herbs feverfew and butterbur.
To evaluate these treatments, the researchers analyzed published studies from June 1999 to May 2009. They then classified the treatments according to how well they worked.
They classified them as “effective” … “probably effective” … “possibly effective” … “data conflicting or inadequate” … or “probably ineffective.”
Amazingly, there was only one treatment that made their list as “effective.” And that treatment was butterbur.
They found that butterbur is more effective at treating migraines than any NSAID they tested. It’s more effective than the hormone estrogen. And it’s more effective than popular natural headache treatments CoQ10, magnesium, and omega-3s.
I’ve been recommending butterbur for years. And I’m glad to see the conventional establishment is finally catching on.
I will add that I also like feverfew, magnesium, and B vitamins. While they don’t stop a headache in its tracks the way butterbur does, they are effective at preventing future attacks.
A Word of Caution
Please make sure the brand of butterbur you use is free of pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which can be harsh on your liver.
Butterbur can also be harsh on your stomach. So I recommend that you only take it when you need it. Don’t take it as a preventative; only take it when you’re actually having an attack.
I know one woman who was having 15-20 attacks a month. She took butterbur every day and it brought her attacks down to 2 or 3 a month.
But she’s an extreme case. Most people only have episodic headaches and should only take it when they have an attack.
This is not the case with feverfew and the other vitamins. You can take those every day, as they’re perfectly safe.
The last thing you want these days is to be rushed to the ER.