Discover the 3-step system to heal headaches

In "Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Headaches," David Buchholz, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, shares his simple and practical system to prevent painful headaches. Here's an excerpt:

The 1-2-3 Program Works
This book is not just for those who have struggled with the extremes of migraine pain for years. It can help you even if you suffer from headaches only occasionally. Do you experience “sinus” headaches when the weather changes or “tension” headaches with stress? Is your neck often stiff, or are you frequently congested? Maybe your child has complained that his head hurts in school, and you haven’t known what to do. Does your teenager have headaches with her periods, month after month? And how about your friend who gets dizzy spells? (Or is it you who’s dizzy all the time?)

The foundation of the 1-2-3 Program is a clear understanding of the migraine mechanism and the broad spectrum of headaches and other symptoms it generates. Once you’ve read all the chapters in this book, you’ll be prepared to take the right steps to prevent its activation—and thereby prevent the symptoms that result. Step 1 puts painkillers in their proper place: infrequent use only. Quick fixes for headaches aren’t your friends; if anything, they’re the enemy. They cause you to lose control, and you won’t get it back until you achieve independence from them. Step 2 is eliminating headache triggers that you can readily control—mainly those that you put in your mouth and swallow. If you can keep your total trigger level below your threshold for activation of migraine, the mechanism will not become activated and you’ll be symptom-free.

If you respond well enough to the first two steps, Step 3 may not be needed. If it does prove necessary, preventive medication (taken on a daily basis) can be added to block activation of migraine and thereby prevent the headaches and other symptoms it generates. Used properly, one or more of several preventive medication options can safely and effectively control your headaches.

But before we begin, let’s be clear about a few things. Most of the ideas expressed in this book did not originate with me. Many other headache specialists, past and present, have contributed to the understanding of headaches that I’m about to lay out for you. My contribution is to take some of these ideas a step further, blend the correct mix and present it so that it makes perfect sense. What I offer is a conceptual model of migraine, based in part on scientific data generated by others and in part on my own experience successfully helping thousands of patients to control their headaches over a period of two decades.

In scientific terms, my beliefs are hypotheses: potential explanations of certain cause-and-effect relationships. In this case, the migraine mechanism is one cause. When activated by sufficient triggers, the effects produced by this mechanism include all types of headaches and a host of other symptoms. Another cause is rebound, which results from dependence on quick-fix painkillers. Its effects are increased headaches and resistance to preventive treatment of migraine.

Scientists may wish to test these hypotheses formally, using randomized controlled trials. Memo to colleagues who undertake this challenge: Good luck, and I hope you do it right. If that’s possible. Helping people control their headaches by guiding them to do the right things demands art, and science in the form of a clinical trial might just interfere. Simply telling people what to do—without adequately explaining why, without forcefully countering resistance to what people don’t want to hear and without offering confident, optimistic encouragement—won’t work. Don’t forget: the process of science inevitably disturbs whatever it studies and therefore never really studies what it means to.

And setting aside the 20 years it’s taken me to refine my skills in teaching people to control their headaches, I know that my passionate faith in the 1-2-3 Program could not possibly be possessed, let alone conveyed, by dispassionate investigators conducting a controlled trial of my approach. I would not even participate in such a trial, because I know that the 1-2-3 Program works and I would not want any patient of mine to be randomized to alternative (and less effective) “control” treatment.

The final and most important hypothesis I offer is that by dealing properly with migraine and rebound you can control their effects: the headaches and other symptoms that result. In my extensive experience with headache patients, this hypothesis has been put to the test repeatedly and has passed time and again. The test is: by using the 1-2-3 Program, can headaches and other symptoms of migraine be controlled? Emphatically, the answer is yes. No “scientific” data to the contrary, from a randomized controlled trial or any other source, would ever convince me otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong: science can be a valuable tool. But sometimes you can recognize truth on your own, without needing scientists to certify it for you, because when you open your eyes and look at things the right way, the truth becomes obvious. Decide for yourself whether or not what I have to say rings true—in fact, makes perfect sense.

The details of my model of migraine may not be completely accurate--after all, the details remain largely unknown to anyone—but for our purposes that’s not so important. What is important is that this model is effective in guiding you to control your headaches. It provides a framework that helps you understand why you have to do what you have to do. With faith in yourself and a clear plan—the 1-2-3 Program—you can control your headaches.

MORE FROM

How one mom learned to translate baby cries

How one mom learned to translate baby cries Quiz: Test your smarts about children’s health ‘Stand by Her’: A breast cancer guide for men Cesar Millan: How to help your pup learn Mom's guide to a happy work-home balance The birds and bees: Talking sex with your child One mother’s battle to save her son from OCD The worst meals for kids ‘Josie’s Story’ turns grief to patient-safety fight Yay! 101 real solutions for bewildered parents   Add headlines to your news reader: