Homeopathy in headaches and migraines

The therapy of headaches and migraines are two distinct clinical entities . However, homeopathic global semiology often determines the same drugs for these two conditions .

What are headaches?

Headache is a pain in the head that must be distinguished from certain neck pain . We will appreciate the character, the modalities, the locations of this pain as well as the accompanying signs: dizziness, nausea, more or less neurotic context. A careful assessment will look for an organic etiology ( sinusitis , meningeal disease, tumor, etc.).

What are migraines?

Migraine is a hemicrania , generally fronto-orbital , occurring more frequently in women, often in a context of psychic rigidity with perfectionism. There is often a family history of migraine . The pain can be continuous or paroxysmal, very often throbbing; it is accompanied by visual, digestive or general signs.

How to choose and according to what homeopathic medicines for migraines and headaches?

Depending on the characteristics of the pain:

Location, usual accompanying signs. We then speak of symptomatic drugs.

Depending on the patient’s terrain:

Of its chronic reaction mode (generally psoric), and / or of its possible sensitive type (pathological tendencies, morphology, usual psychic behavior). In this case, we are talking about long-term drugs.

Headaches and migraines with digestive disorders

Symptomatic drugs:

Headaches or migraines are periodic , of indifferent laterality; they predominate on weekends, rest days or at the start of holidays. They are accompanied by profuse vomiting , mucus, stringy, often but not exclusively acidic and burning . The burning sensation can spread throughout the digestive tract. Sometimes the vomiting can be sweet or bitter in character.

This medication is suitable for supraorbital migraines , especially straight, punctate , preceded by visual disturbances, accompanied by stringy , thick, yellowish vomiting . The pain improves with local pressure.

One can find concomitantly a gastritis with burn, a desire for beer which aggravates digestive disorders and migraines.

Indicated in migraines or headaches of constipated, this medication is taken when the pain begins in the forehead and will attach to the occiput. They appear after several days of constipation.

This medication is taken when the pain changes sides, either between the onset and the end of the migraine, or from one attack to another.

This medication is taken when the cephalgic or migraine symptoms are accompanied by digestive symptoms : saburral state, flatulence, constipation. This drug should be tried when the patient is defective (clinical case in which the patient has no characteristic symptoms of a drug).

Dosage : These drugs will be taken in 7, 9 and 15CH, several times a day at the time of the attacks; as a preventive measure, once a day, for many months.

Field drugs:

Migraine is most often right supraorbital , which may be accompanied by right vertical hemianopia . This migraine can appear electively if the mealtime is delayed compared to usual. However, the appetite is relatively preserved despite the migraine.

The general, hepatic and renal signs of the drug are also found.

This drug will be indicated in headaches when waking up or in migraines resulting from overeating , in patients presenting the general and digestive signs of the drug: loaded tongue in its posterior part, postprandial drowsiness, spasmodic constipation, hemorrhoids .

Headaches can be frontal or occipital; it can also be left hemicrania. Here again, the drug can be chosen from all the patient’s signs : typology, digestive signs (hepatism, constipation, visceral ptosis), genital signs.

This drug is taken in congestive subjects having sensations of burning in the vertex, the openings, the soles of the feet, with improvement by the fresh. They often present with psoric manifestations . Headaches are congestive, always periodic , sometimes on days of rest.

Migraine is periodic, preceded by an unusual feeling of well-being ; during the crisis, the appetite is preserved ; sometimes there is even excessive hunger. The pain improves with warm applications . Often, the patient will describe the appearance of black spots in front of the eyes. In addition, we find thinness, marked reluctance, excessive asthenia.

Dosage : All medicines will be taken in 9, 15 or 30CH from once a week to once a day.

Headaches and migraines with circulatory disorders

These patients are congested, often hypertensive and have vascular sclerosis .

Symptomatic drugs:

They include drugs presenting phenomena of cephalic congestion:

It is the drug of acute congestive phenomena, of sudden onset, with pulsating pains , mydriasis, photophobia, redness of the face, aggravation by noise and shaking.

The symptoms are marked here more than with Belladonna ; the arterial beats are stronger. There may be black or colored scotomas, especially when lowering the head. In crisis, the patient is intolerant to radiant heat and to tremors.

This drug is very similar to Glonoinum . The phenomena of cephalic congestion are improved by an epistaxis or any other loss of blood.

Dosage : These three drugs will be taken in 5, 7 or 9CH, 5 granules several times a day at the time of painful attacks.

It is the drug for congestive headaches with throbbing, burning, throbbing pains and circumscribed redness of the cheeks . It is also suitable for periodic migraines , for example every seven days, especially straight ones. The pain begins in the occiput, spread to the top of the head to come and settle above the right eye. Beginning in the morning, the headache is maximum around noon to subside in the evening.

These symptoms are aggravated by smells, noise, light, movement and improved by lying in the dark, sleeping, or evacuating stomach or intestinal gas.

It is the drug for congestive headaches preceded by visual disturbances (diplopia) . The patient has pain in the eyeballs which appear bruised. He’s obsessed and dazed . The headache is predominantly occipital , with radiation to the muscles of the neck and shoulders. She improves with her head held high and by copious emission of urine which announces the end of the crisis.

This strain is caught in congestive headaches, of sudden onset with the impression of throbbing and cephalic heat. There is a blood pressure instability with a tendency to congestive hypertension. Headaches can be consecutive to the absorption of cheese, tomatoes, bananas. Serotoninum can also be prescribed as an etiologic drug in defective cases.

These two drugs are chosen for migraine headaches, the clinical manifestations of which do not suggest any clear pathogenetic characteristic. They will be taken on their physiopathological similarity: Secale , on the concept of arteriolar affinity and Apis , on the concept of edema.

This drug is taken in the acute congestive manifestations of hypertensive people . The cephalalgic shows a red face; his eyes are injected, his head is hot and heavy, his pupils are in mydriasis and he complains of diplopia. Most of the time, there is a dermographism .

This drug is chosen in the pulsating and hammering headaches, accompanied by facial flushing. But these phenomena are here the consequence of anemia, hypotension and not a plethoric congestion as in Belladonna or Glonoïnum . The face is red and the feet are cold. In severe hypochromic anemia, it is of course advisable to give moderate iron therapy.

Dosages : All these drugs will be taken in 5, 7 or 9CH, several times a day at the time of the attacks, then once a day as a preventive measure against relapses.

Field drugs:

This drug presents in its pathogenesis localized or generalized vascular congestive phenomena which may alternate with other affections (psoric reaction mode).

It is taken in bloated subjects with hypertensive vascular erethism . Their face is often vultuous, dark, their complexion cyanose or olive. Irascible because hypersensitive, they lack self-confidence and are often anxious, depressed, sometimes with suicidal thoughts. Fresh air and cold applications improve these subjects despite their reluctance.

Aurum iodatum corresponds to lean subjects with a more sclerotic vascular state.

This drug is very close to aurum . It also corresponds to the phenomena of cephalic congestion with increase in systemic blood pressure, tachycardia, precordial anxieties then bradycardia. But while litigants topics of aurum improve the freshness, the symptoms of strontium s’ aggravate the costs and improve the heat.

Dosage : These field drugs will be taken in 9, 15 or 30CH; from once a week to once a day depending on the patient’s reactivity.

Headache or migraine with dystonia or asthenia

These patients present themselves as anxious, neurodystonic, generally psychasthenic. They are hypersensitive in the face of life events, quickly upset, easily sleepless; headache or migraine is one of the symptoms by which they express their discomfort.

Symptomatic drugs:

This drug is suitable for headaches of schoolchildren , students, intellectually overworked people , with a feeling of physical fatigue.

This drug is generally taken in young, thin subjects, tired by a too fast growth, an acute debilitating disease, strong sorrows , excess of work or of pleasures. They represent a great nervous exhaustion with very weakened memory, intellectual slowness and inability to think or reflect. This results in great indifference to everything . Sleepy during the day, this subject does not sleep at night. The headache is accompanied by a heavy head, a feeling of pressure on the vertex. It is aggravated by movement, by noise; it improves with rest and lying down.

This medication is suitable for people who are pale, nervously tired, continually shaking their feet and legs . They are slow to understand, to think, not from lack of intelligence but from cerebral fatigue or nervous weakening.

Their headaches worsen with intellectual effort. These subjects easily complain of reduced visual acuity and have a particular intolerance for wine and alcohol .

This drug is also suitable for headaches in students after intellectual overwork. The pain makes them especially irritable and can lead to a feeling of split personality. The headache, like all their behavior, gets better with eating .

It is the drug of hypersensitive, hyperexcitables , whose clinical manifestations have a paradoxical, hysteriform character . The headache can be localized, “like a nail driven into the head”, but it can also be a general feeling of a heavy head.

Symptoms are caused or worsened by the slightest emotion or stress, ameliorated by distraction . The headache is particularly triggered by a neighbor’s tobacco smoke, while his own smoke is especially well tolerated. Digestive disorders and food intolerance are more a function of the psychic atmosphere of the meal than of real food.

Dosage : All these drugs are prescribed in 9 or 15CH, once or twice a day.

Basic drugs:

This medicine is taken in children or adolescents who grow too fast, who are too thin, inappetent, tired. It is more growth than intellectual efforts that tires them. They often complain of bone pain in the back or epiphyses . Headaches by themselves are not characteristic.

It is the medicine for weak individuals, demineralized , with brittle nails, stained with white. They are prone to suppurations . Hypersensitive to cold, they sweat easily from the head and feet. They are nervous, lively subjects , despite their weakness. Intelligent, they are shy , lack self-confidence, are always afraid of not being up to their task and yet they do well when they are under stress.

They are quickly exhausted by the intellectual effort and clearly present chronic headaches beginning in the neck, going up to the vertex to come to fix on the right eye or on both eyes. These patients are aggravated by drafts and intellectual effort; they are improved by warmly wrapping the head , tightening it tightly, or profuse urination. The headache is sometimes followed by transient scotomas.

Dosage : Prescribe in 9, 15 or 30CH, from once a week to once a day.

Headaches or migraines with hormonal disturbances

A number of migraines can have a fixed position in the menstrual cycle or can be triggered by a hormonal imbalance.

Symptomatic drugs:

This medication is the choice to take in catamenial headaches and migraines. Headaches are accompanied or precede visual disturbances and dizziness, often with associated membranous dysmenorrhea. They are greatest during menstruation, aggravated outdoors and by coffee.

This medication will be used when the headache is proportional to the menstrual flow; there is concomitant dysmenorrhea.

Dosage : These 2 drugs will be taken in 7 or 9CH, once a day, from the 15th day of the cycle until the end of the rules.

Basic drugs:

This drug is chosen for congestive headaches , throbbing, aggravated by heat, improved by fresh air, occurring in women with scanty and spaced periods . They also exhibit the characteristic sensitive type of the drug.

Dosage : Take 9 or 15CH from once a week to once a day.

The great modality of this drug is improvement through discharge or menstruation . It will be necessary to know how to think about it not only if the headaches are premenstrual and improved by the flow, but also if the headaches appear during the rules when the flow is less abundant than during other cycles, or when the flow becomes less abundant, to the end of the period.

For menstrual-improving premenstrual headaches, take for example:

A dose of Lachesis 9CH on the 19th day of the cycle, another of 15CH on the 20th day, and finally, a dose of Lachesis 30CH on the 21st day.

Dosage : For headaches that appear during menstruation due to insufficient flow, take 5 granules in 9 or 15CH, once or twice a day, every day during menstruation.

This medication is taken when the headache is contemporaneous with a hyperfolliculin syndrome .

Dosage : Then take a dose of 30CH on the 7th or 8th day of the cycle.

 

Clementine. M.
Naturopath – Aromatherapist / Herbalist – Phytotherapist
Consultant in Clinical Phyto-aromatherapy and Ethnomedicine

Leave a comment