Taurine, my miracle cure
I have been suffering from migraines for over 15 years. I have the real deal: when I have a big migraine, the pain is so intense, I wish my head would blow up to end it. It usually starts on my ocular nerve, on one side (not always the same side). It spread to the brain then I become extra sensitive to light, sound and even smell. It just gets worse until it become unsupportable and makes me throw up. My migraines usually last for 10 to 20 hours.
I have consults many doctors, general practicians, pharmacologists, etc. I tried about everything. Only one drug was actually working: Zomig. It's just a shame that it is so expensive.
I tried other tricks, pretty everything I could hear about, no matter how silly it was. I was just trying to find something that would work. I tried sport drinks, high concentration of Himalayan salt mixed with lemon (warning: don't try that at home, you may get osmotic diarrhea), drinking more water, doing more exercises, pressing magic spot on my body, squeezing the nerve between my thumb and my index, and so on.
About 3 years ago, I went to Indonesia with a friend. I had a migraine early on the trip. I didn't want it to handicap my friend so I was ready to try anything to get rid of it. We stop at a shop and bought a small bottle of energy drink. I drank the whole thing and a few minutes later, my migraine was gone. I was hoping that it was just a coincidence because, to be honest, I didn't wanted to have to rely on energy drinks to fix my migraines. Those thing can really mess you up.
I tried to find papers on the subject. The only paper I found was actually suggesting that energy drinks may cause migraines when used on a regular basis. That was not helping.
After a few migraines, I had to admit that something in the energy drink was really the solution. I decided to try isolating the ingredients, to find the one that was working. Unfortunately, the list was pretty long. Also, every unsuccessful attempt cost me a full day, because once the migraine is well started, even the energy drink can't stop it.
I tried other energy drinks, but I could not find an other one that was working... until about 2 months ago. I went to Madagascar and could not find my magical energy drink anywhere. I tried one that I never seen before and it was just as effective.
It's time to isolate the commons ingredients. The list is pretty small, so that will be easy:
1 Carbonated water
2 Sugar
3 Citric acid
4 Taurine
5 Riboflavin (vitamin B2)
I already eliminated the first 3 in many of my previous attempts. Taurine is in high dose in both drinks (1g) so that could be it. Riboflavin is present in very little quantity, so I might give it a try later if Taurine doesn't work. It turns out that Taurine is a food supplement, available in my local pharmacy. It come as a white powder in a 150g bottle.
I did some research before starting to ingest something I know so little about. Taurine is a sulfonic acid (a kind of amino acid), present in large quantity in our body. We get it mostly from meat and our body can also produce small quantity from another amino acid. Excess are eliminated by the liver so you don't get poisoned when you ingest too much of it. That's actually very good news.
I read pretty much all papers I could find on the subject, I just wanted to be sure it was safe. There is a whole lot of them, going as far back as 1960. I didn't managed to find any evidence that it could be harmful in any way, even at very high concentration like 1g per kg of body weight. I read on many websites that it's often used to control migraines!! Why the hell not a single doctor told me about that?
(I keep a list of all my sources, just ask me if you want some of the papers)
The bottle I bought is 100% pure Taurine. It dissolve very well in liquid and has absolutely no taste at all. I had numerous migraines since I came back from Madagascar and every times, the Taurine fixed it within 5 minutes. That's right! 5 minutes! Unbelievable! It's more effective than Zomig! I don't even know if my digestive system can absorb anything that fast, but it really does work. I take between 1g to 2g, mixed with juice, when I feel like I will have a migraine (or when I have already one). I didn't found any undesirable side effects, it's simply a miracle cure.
For everyone reading this, please, DON'T rush to your pharmacy to buy a bucket of Taurine! First, try an energy drink that contains at least 1g of Taurine. If that has no effect on you, you probably have a different type of migraine. If it has some effect, it probably worth trying the Taurine supplement.
I hope my discovery will help other migraineurs out there.
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