Surprise — you may already have some sitting in your kitchen. Caffeine constricts blood vessels, and this can effectively decrease pain. Learn more from The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health, by Carolyn Bernstein, M.D., and Elaine McArdle.
Caffeine can be so effective in fighting migraines that many migraine medications include it as an ingredient, including Excedrin Migraine, Advil Migraine, and Motrin Migraine Pain, and prescription drugs like Fiorinal. Caffeine also helps you absorb other medications, which is another reason it is included in some of these migraine medications. And it is a brain stimulant so it can help you think better if you’re in a migraine fog.
Caffeine Cure
If you start to feel a migraine coming on, try drinking a cup or two of strong black coffee or a caffeinated soft drink, a simple treatment that works for many people. Do not drink a sugar-free soda that contains Nutrasweet or any kind of aspartame, which can trigger migraines. Don’t add Nutrasweet to your coffee, either.
One patient sensed a terrible migraine on its way, grabbed a double-chocolate espresso candy bar at Starbucks (she’s not a coffee drinker), and was able to stave off the migraine. It was a funky treatment—but it was harmless, and it worked for her.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Carolyn Bernstein,M.D., co-author of The Migraine Brain (Copyright © 2008 by Carolyn Bernstein, M.D. and Elaine McArdle), is an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a staff neurologist at Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A board-certified neurologist, Dr. Bernstein belongs to the American Academy of Neurology. In 2006, Dr. Bernstein won the Harvard Medical School Faculty Prize for Teaching Excellence, and in 2007, she was the recipient of the Leonard Tow Award for Humanism in Medicine given by Harvard Medical School and the Arnold Gold Foundation. In 2007, she also won the National Headache Foundation’s Headache Healthcare Provider of the Year. In 2006, Dr. Bernstein opened her own headache clinic for women, the Women’s Headache Center at Cambridge Health Alliance.
Elaine McArdle, co-author of The Migraine Brain (Copyright © 2008 by Carolyn Bernstein, M.D. and Elaine McArdle), is an award-winning journalist, lawyer with a degree from Vanderbilt Law School, and migraineur who for twenty years has been writing for newspapers and magazines, including The Boston Globe, Boston magazine, and many others.
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