Dr. Mercola has one of the largest alternative health websites on the Internet.
I have had migraines since I was 6. I have had every kind of treatment from prescription to OTC meds, to surgeries, and I have seen every kind of doctor for allopathic to holistic. My best results yet have come from the Chronic Pain Solution Center. Dr. Seymour has created a splint for my lower plate as a diagnostic tool to find where my correct jaw alignment is. Once this is found, he will build my bite to match this correct jaw alignment and I am fixed for life. The severe migraines and trigeminal neuralgia I had are all related to my misaligned jaw which irritates the trigeminal nerve which is the powerhouse for creating migraines, cluster headaches, etc. Visit the Chronic Pain Solution web site to learn more about how the trigeminal nerve and misaligned bite is related a lot more than just migraines. It is wonderful finding relief without surgery or drugs.
www.chronicpainsolutioncenter.com/Chronic_Pain_Solution_Center.html
I began having what I thought were migraines in my teens. Some doctors suggested they were cluster headaches which are the evil cousin of the migraine. I eventually discovered that is what they were. Avoiding "triggers" definitely helped as did using a variety of pressure points early in the cycle which, in my case lasted about 30 days, one in the spring and one in the fall. As the cycle, or "cluster" progressed and the headaches got increasingly more severe there was absolutely nothing that helped short of Demerol. I eventually got relief, I was in my fifties by then, with Sumatriptan (Imitrex) injectable but even that was not my idea of a good time and it only stopped one headache at a time. I eventually tried the Internet in the mid nineties and discovered a support website for cluster headache sufferers which listed everything that people had found to work. This included oxygen which seems to be effective for many. I had to use industrial oxygen because getting a prescription was impossible and outrageously expensive. I printed the whole list and took it to my physician. We eventually settled on Prednisone, a steroid. A 5 day course of treatment that started out with a large dose and progressively smaller doses. This immediately stopped my headaches cold. I didn't have another series of them for ten years and that was involved with a sinus infection and was not as intolerable as typical cluster headaches.
Headaches are so common that Americans dish out more than $1 billion every year to get relief from migraines. Just as troubling: The pain associated with migraines can be so severe that some patients will actually consider suicide as a reasonable alternative. Conventional medicine focuses on drugs that only solve the problem temporarily. I've found most people experience dramatic improvement after adopting the nutrition plan I promote. Most migraines seem to have a food-based reaction relating to wheat, dairy, sugar, or artificial preservatives or chemicals. Eliminating these foods and incorporating the other eating plan measures, frequently improves migraines. Generally there is a 70-80 percent reduction in the frequency and intensity of the pain after people begin following the eating plan that you can study in more detail in my book, Total Health Program. Headaches are very common problems for many people who see me for the first visit, but the vast majority of people who return in one month for their follow-up visit tell me that their headaches are gone. If you need additional help, I also recommend psychological acupressure tools like EFT. This technique focuses the attention on the cause of the stress, rather than just treating the pain. A series of EFT videos are also available that have been significantly updated and improved so you can learn to use this method on your own.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/07/31/headache-burden.aspx