How to Stop Migraine Headaches Before They Start
The gripping pain, nausea and vomiting seem too big for a baby to handle – but it depends on which baby you’re talking about.
Image by Migraine Chick via Flickr
A baby aspirin each day could be able to handle the job of relieving your migraine headaches.
Researchers are suggesting that one aspirin taken every other day (or one baby aspirin every day) helps cut the risk of migraine headaches.
The aspirin seems to work by keeping platelets from clotting in your blood.
Platelets are the components in your blood that help form scabs when you cut yourself. They clot the blood and keep you from bleeding endlessly. Unfortunately, sometimes they clot when they don’t need to, and they cause problems like migraine headaches.
Taking aspirin reduces the ability of the platelets to clot. And this lowers your chances of getting another migraine, according to this theory.
A team of researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital performed a study to test the effects of aspirin on migraine headaches. They started with 22,000 male volunteers (ages 40 to 64) and studied them fro five years. The men took an aspirin or a sugar pill every other day for the five years.
From the 22,000 they focused on 1,479 men who had suffered from migraines. The study showed that there was a 20-percent reduction in migraine risk among the men who took the aspirin.
The researchers suggest the results should encourage people who suffer from migraines to consider taking one baby aspirin a day to help cut down on their risk of migraines. But the researchers caution people about the possible stomach irritation that aspirin might produce.
Medical Source: Science News (137, 7:103)
Journal of the American Medical Association (264, 13:1711)
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raman13 | Aug 20, 2009 | Reply
nice
lori krecioch | Oct 14, 2009 | Reply
Interesting article. I have heard similar things before. I would like for researchers to try this aspirin method on women migraine sufferers. Our body chemistry is different and I wonder if this would have the same positive effects.