95% Improvement in Migraine Frequency and 80% Improvement in Severity

How I achieved 95% improvement in Migraine Frequency and 80% improvement in Severity in the remaining 5% occurrences:

Hi, I am 44, an IT Expert living in Pakistan, with a chronic typical migraine problem with a 30-year history. I want to share information with you about how it improved drastically.

95% improvement was easily and quickly achievable. I took more time to improve because I didn’t start to follow all precautions and instructions quickly. I was going through experiments so it took some time.

All you have to do is to quickly start following easily manageable precautions and instructions, especially related to light and diet, and stick to it seriously and immediately.

Here is the info about my migraine and improvement.

My Migraine Type

Typical Migraine (with Blind Spot)
Chronic, 30-year-old problem, i.e. migraine + "Blurred or Blind Spot”, severe headache, nausea, vomiting, weakness, movement problem due to blurred vision.

Previous Frequency: once a week (average)
Current Frequency: twice a YEAR (by the blessings of the Almighty)

Occurrence / Frequency history

My Migraine problem started around 1990, soon frequency increased to once a week on average.
After 10 years or so (around the year 2000), I realized that it’s damaging me badly, it’s causing extreme trouble to my studies, so I started taking it seriously, read articles about it, keenly observed its triggers, and started taking precautions seriously, migraine improved soon (in a span of a couple of years), migraine occurrences reduced to 1 to 2 times a year.

This improvement happened maximum in a couple of years or so, a bit late because I increased the precautions gradually with the passage of time. After 2 years of so, I was following most of the instructions and precautions.

You can start to follow maximum instructions and precautions quickly so you won’t have to wait for a couple of years for improvement. You can achieve results rapidly, in a couple of months.

Current Worry (ignorable to some extent)

I feel now that a slight ignorable blurred spot is almost permanent and variable in intensity time to time.

Mostly this blind spot is ignorable and according to doctors, it's normal.

In Fasting Month (Ramazan), this Dark Spot slightly increases in intensity, still, it remains manageable but I'm in a constant fear of another migraine attack, that fortunately doesn’t happen mostly.

Duration of migraine attack:
Old Duration: It used to last up to 18 hours.
But now I control it when it is starting, within 30 minutes to 1 hour mostly, up to 4 hours sometimes.
Severity is now reduced significantly (80% or so).

Signs and Symptoms in my case

In a typical case, in start of migraine, I see a Blurred / Blind Spot mostly on the right side of the focal point (without any headache).
i.e. if i'm reading text in English (left to right) then I don't see the next few words clearly or it's blurred vision or 100% dark circle. If I'm reading text in Urdu (right to left) then it's readable (but it’s uncomfortable because i can't see what I've read already).

30 to 60 minutes later, it leads to severe headache, that sometimes does not decrease with pain killers even after taken every 4 hours,
nausea, it may lead to vomiting, a Complete Big Blindspot, movement problem due to blind spot, and weakness.

These signs may continue from 1 hour to 18 hours, depending upon treatment taken quickly in start of migraine attack or not.
A slight blurred spot in vision remains there for some days. Doctors say it’s normal.

My self-derived Treatment, after migraine attack starts

Normally I can control migraine in the starting 15 - 30 minutes, after observing the blurred / blind spot (it's usually without any pain in start, normally in the morning after wakeup). During this time, blind spot starts, and headache doesn't start. If I don't treat it in this period then migraine goes out of control.

Food: Immediate intake of any of the followings:
Salty & Tangy food items, like Salty Lays Chips Rs. 50 packet, Wavy, Lays Masala, Saltish Biscuits, Zeera Plus biscuits (1 or 2 of these items) available in Pakistan.

Along with:
Drinks: any or most of the followings:
strong home-made original Lemonade, ready-made leemu pani (lemonade with artificial or lemon powder), Tang, Mirinda (1 or 2 of these items)
And Strong / Double Tea, etc. at the end.

Medicines: (not allowed by this page to tell here)

I take all of these above items within starting 15-30 minutes of blurred vision or in the very start of headache, starting from salty and cold items, and ending on hot tea, medicines in the middle / start after some intake of salty chips & biscuits.

Result:
the migraine attack, blind spot, nausea and pain stops at the stage where it has reached, almost instantly.

Blurred spot or blind spot fades away, within 30 - 60 minutes, headache doesn't start or it stops as it is (slight headache) and reverts back in 1-4 hours completely in bearable and relatively comfortable situation throughout, during which I can watch TV and use mobile, etc. most of the time.

But a very light / ignorable Blurred Spot remains there for some / many days.

Continued Treatment immediately after food and medicines :

If migraine is continuing, then I lie down in bed in a completely dark room. Try/act to sleep, 1st on right side for 5 minutes or so, then on left side, keep changing sides every 5 minutes. It improves the headache remarkably.

Slow and steady, intake of the same food and drink items every 30 minutes or so, as comfortable / as required.

I finish about 1 jug of lemonade or similar drinks in some hours. Or i change next drinks, e.g. 1 glass of lemonade in start, followed by 1 glass of mirinda after 30 minutes, .... tang after 30 more minutes.

In Worst Case / if I couldn't start treatment in time:
I stay in complete dark room: for whole day / as long as the problem persists / if the problem has become severe and is unresolved after 30 to 60 minutes, because light is extremely irritating and i can't see properly any way because of the blind spot.

Worst case: (not allowed to tell about medicines)

Triggering Reasons

*** biggest factor *** Awkward or strong Light Glare / reflection. ***

Strong light coming straight in eyes for more time.

Unbalanced lighting: If I watch TV or Mobile or just sit in a room with less light in the room and more strong sunlight coming from the window, or from left or right side of the room, or from the window on the back of TV.

Glare / reflection of sunlight in Kitchen, usually sink / water area, or light reflection from water in car porch after car wash or floor wash.

In any of such situation, Migraine may start in a few minutes or till the next morning.

If migraine starts today, then it may well be due to some wrong thing (any of the triggers) happened yesterday.

Try to figure out the cause.

Other aggravating reasons:

*** 2nd biggest reason: Food ***

Skipped meals or drinks including water, when added to other causes like tension then it may add up with the other triggers (light factors) and trigger migraine.

ON EMPTY STOMACH: tea, coffee, chocolate, cold drink, etc. on empty stomach, may increase chances of migraine.

Other reasons: heat, fatigue, exhaustion, tension / stress, sleeplessness, etc. may increase chances of migraine.

Precautions (As much as possible)

*** Light is the main factor ***

I use a good amount of light in the room, more light source inside (tube lights) than from outside (sunlight) the room.

I try to keep Balanced dispersed lighting in the room. Light coming from only one side of the room causes problem.

Avoid light bulbs, use tube lights, or other sources of dispersed lighting in the room, like hidden lights / light sources with covers.

Avoid reading in strong sunlight.

Avoid continuous looking at any object (like TV, mobile) while light is directly coming in your eyes.

I use window curtains to avoid sharp sunlight coming from one side of the room.

Use Sunglasses outdoors.

Almost continuous use of P-cap to avoid Sunlight outside and even inside home/room to avoid unbalanced room light coming directly in eyes.

Strictly & immediately get rid of glares / light reflections.

***2nd biggest cause, Food ***

Better / healthy / timely Diet.

Don't skip meals.

Don't keep your stomach empty for long time.

Take regular meals and drinks (tea & water) on time.

Use biscuits/snacks whenever regular food/meal is not available on time.

I try NOT to use plastic wrapped / ready-made food items & artificial drinks in normal life (unless I get migraine, then I use salty chips, mirinda, tang, etc.).

Tea:
Take tea preferably 30 minutes after breakfast/lunch, or side by side while eating breakfast/lunch, but not 5 – 20 minutes after meal, it disturbs digestion.

If required, take irregular/evening tea with biscuits/snacks, but not on empty stomach.

Take tea 30 minutes after dinner if you don't have sleep issues, otherwise, skip it.

Others Precautions

Avoid extreme hot conditions/ rooms, for long time.

Do some enjoyable Sports, and prefer sports over exercise. Sports improve both mind and body.

Do things that make you happy & relaxed, try to reduce stress. Stress will always be there so you can do stress-reducing activities, e.g. Sports reduce stress as well. But don't exhaust yourself mentally or physically.

Reduce screen / mobile time.

Get normal sleep.

Keep yourself busy.

Make sure you don't have any problem of Eyes, Ear, Nose, Throat, Teeth.

More Precautions

Have a check-up of brain also, if possible.

Do stretching of neck.

Take frequent breaks in study or office.

Always keep the food items & medicines, mentioned above, in your room and keep maximum possible items in other places/office, car, etc.

Long term Precautions & Result:

After taking most of these precautions as much as possible (mainly & strictly light and diet factors), the frequency of my migraine is reduced to about 95%, i.e. 1 to 2 times a year, from once a week.

Note: I still have a severe sleep problem, tension, stress, high screen time (I am a Programming / IT Expert), i don't do sports regularly now, though i spend 1 to 2 hours in relaxing (playing with family/son, etc.). But migraine frequency is under control mainly by controlling light and diet factors.

My Current Worry:
In Fasting Month (Ramazan), the Blurred / dark spot in vision bothers a bit more, it slightly increases in intensity and I'm in a constant fear of another migraine attack but fortunately, it doesn’t happen most of the time.

To end this text, I would suggest you to follow the precautions as much as possible and soon you'll get rid of migraine.

I hope this info will help people.

Regards,
Zeeshan Ghani