Will Doctors Ever Cure Migraines?

By Ryan Bradley Posted 02.29.2012 at 11:18 am 12 Comments

Brain Pain Jonathan Carlson

My first migraine arrived in a fuzzy cloud of reds and purples, a stab of pain that left me bent over in the back of an auto-rickshaw, squinting and nauseous, on my morning commute to Connaught Place, in New Delhi. Months later, when I left India, I thought that the headaches would disappear along with the chaos of the overcrowded capital. They didn’t. And finally, after months spent stumbling into my room, drawing the curtains, and lying in the darkness for hours wishing for sleep, I went to an internist, who prescribed a brain scan. When he found nothing, he told me what I already suspected: migraines. I asked him the cause, but all he could say was, “Stress, probably, which can mean any number of things.”

It was an unsatisfying answer, but accurate—36 million Americans suffer from migraines, and no one knows why. In the seven years since my diagnosis, neurologists have come closer to understanding how migraines work. Last summer at a conference, David Dodick, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the president of the American Headache Society, explained that the thalamus, the region of the brain responsible for sensory information and sleep cycles, was “acting as a sort of railway station to transmit migraine pain to pain receptors throughout the brain.” Scientists have also developed a treatment for migraines in which a tiny subcutaneous battery is wired to the patient’s spine to deliver small pulses of electricity to the thalamus. The method, which falls under a broad range of treatments called neurostimulation, seems to derail the thalamus’s pain transmissions during a migraine.

Despite this progress, the gulf between treating migraines and curing them is still broad. Neurologists in Belgium, Italy, Germany and Chicago have confirmed that neurostim prevents pain, but just why it works is a mystery. As a team at the University Medical Center Hamburg–Eppendorf wrote, “underlying neuronal mechanisms are . . . still unknown.” Even with treatments in hand, scientists appear trapped in a Zeno’s paradox of research: The closer they come to discovering the cause of migraines, the more baffling the brain gets. They’ve found the railway station but don’t yet understand its switches.

To better comprehend why scientists seem further than ever from finding the cause of migraines, I called James Fallon, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Irvine. Fallon teaches deep-brain stimulation, a method of treatment that’s similar to neurostim. After nearly four decades studying the mysteries of the brain, he said he has come to realize that we may never have all the answers. Everyone’s brain is different, he said, so a cure would have to be as unique as my migraines are to me. The aura I saw that day in India—a fuzzy cloud of reds and purples—had everything to do with my brain at that precise moment in time. I’ve never seen a vision like it since. Our brains are as singular as we are, so it’s no surprise that the cure to their ailments may be beyond our ken.

Check out more from our Future of Medicine issue here.

Previous Article: How We're Creating "Terminator Vision" in Your Future Contact Lenses

Next Article: The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012

12 Comments

Link to this comment

Tooold

02/27/12 at 5:38 pm

RJW In my experience, doctors haven't cured anything. I've been almost killed by being fed pills that had more adverse effects and anything. Some side effects almost cost me my eyesight and my liver. One series of treatment gave me almost six years of angina which went away when a new doctor told me that what had been prescribed was not good for me. I quit going to doctors and taking medicine about five years ago and my health has improved greatly. I'll be 80 years old soon and plan on NOT seeing a doctor and keeping my health.

Link to this comment

kryptos

02/29/12 at 1:30 pm

Why are side effects of some medication so much Worse then the actual affliction?

Link to this comment

beefymclovin

02/29/12 at 1:54 pm

for my migranes i pop 2 aleve, a tylenol pm, and a midol. over kill? dangerous? not if u have a migrane from hell

Link to this comment

Convictus

02/29/12 at 4:32 pm

I get one about 4 times a year. They used to be painful now (last 3 years) they just overlay my vision with static like on old analog TV set.

Luckily 10minutes with a towel over my eyes does the trick. 100% stress related for me. Its weird stuff for certain.

Link to this comment

engnrng

03/01/12 at 1:19 pm

I am surprised at Mr. Bradley's assertion that "no one knows why". I started getting blinding migraines in high school, saw an article in Scientific American in the late 60's that revealed the cause (relaxation of ballooned capillaries in the brain). I used this information to try a cure and it worked, although it took nearly a half hour. Now, when I feel one starting, I am able to stop the progression and reverse it in a very short time. It has been many years since I experienced the debilitating effects for more than a few minutes.

Link to this comment

910geiss

03/01/12 at 6:57 pm

I have found recently that drugs are not the answer and the neurologist is clueless on the level of pain. After driving the car off the road due to a blackout caused by a migraine I was prescribed another pill that I had to pay 95% of. I was at the end of my rope. I have had migraine since age 7.
I had been taken courses in the medical field. I enjoyed all of the information on the central nervous system and spinal cord. And, how certain things could be blocked off! Hmmm... I thought why couldn't I try to block the nerve that was causing all of this pain? And, could it be possible? It is true not every migraine is the same. But, what if I could just cut it off at the source? So, one night at the peak of a 10.0 migraine I went to the freezer w/a gallon sz ziplock Baggie. I filled it up with ice. I went into the living room put a towel over my head and draped the bag of ice over the head. After 30 minutes 60% of the pain was in check. I'm waiting to catch my next migraine much earlier on to see if I can totally prevent it with ice. The pain is brought on by dialated blood vessels that become irritated and the nerve release a chemical sending a signal to the brain. So, will it work every time? I don't know yet, but I plan on keeping a log.

Link to this comment

Far Out Man

03/02/12 at 5:37 pm

@910geiss
are you sure that is safe? I hope you have someone watching you when you try it.

I'm curious about this topic because I've never really known what a migraine is. I've had bad headaches, sometimes seemingly caused by temperature or barometric changes, that only long sleep seemed to cure. They were bad but I get the impression that they are not as bad as "migraines". I look forward to reading some more comments from suffers.

Link to this comment

motownlucas

03/04/12 at 2:26 pm

No known cause, no cure, treatments will be as individual as the person? Unreal, and almost entirely false.

Nearly everything in our bodies is controlled by hormones. David Brownstein, M.D., a Board-Certified family physician and Director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, MI has cured countless people of migraines largely by balancing their hormones. These are people who have gone to so-called specialists and were consistently told "there's nothing wrong with you."

Sick of being prescribed the "latest and greatest" drug to treat your symptoms after a 5-minute office visit? If you value your health please check out the wealth of knowledge being shared by Dr. Brownstein at drbrownstein.com.

I am (unfortunately) in no way associated with Dr. Brownstein or his practice. I am an automotive engineer in the Detroit area and learned of Dr. Brownstein through my chiropractor. I have since read many of his books and they are very eye-opening. Highly recommended!

Link to this comment

ironjustice

03/04/12 at 11:17 pm

Increased migraines are a symptom of increased iron in the body which causes increased red blood cells which causes a high hemoglobin.
"Headache prevalence related to haemoglobin and ferritin. The HUNT Study"
"Migraine was less likely among women with low haemoglobin"

When people are treated with iron reduction / venesection their migraines are minimized.
"Three treatments by venesection improved the headache substantially in frequency, intensity, and duration of attacks "

Link to this comment

thumbpick

03/06/12 at 11:19 am

No, not as long as they are looking for physical anomalies in the brain. The source of the migraines start in the subconscious mind. The majority of them are psychosomatic.

Link to this comment

dslovejoy

03/08/12 at 1:36 am

I'm 48. I've had migraines since I was a teenager. The normal migraine medications I was prescribed had side effects that kept me down for a full day or more after taking them, and I would often get another migraine while I was recovering from the cure.
I always suspected the cause of my migraines were hormonal. Three years ago, I had my testosterone levels checked, and I found out that I was producing minimal amounts.
Shortly after that, I started on hormone replacement therapy and I haven't had a migraine headache since.
For me, all it takes is a weekly self injection of androgen.
In addition to getting rid of the migraines, I have more energy and a better outlook on life. My sex drive didn't rise the way I was led to believe.
I will have to worry about long term side effects such as prostate problems, but that risk is worth it.

Link to this comment

UCDC

03/09/12 at 9:44 am

In the last 17 years of practice I have personally cared for hundreds of patients with migraine headaches. The success rate has been nearly 99%, with the exception of several cases where there were acoustic neuroma's causing intra-cranial space occupying pressures. Considering that after conception the primal tissue "Ectoderm" is the precursor to all other tissue types we must take the position that all tissue in the human body is under direct or indirect control of the nervous system. If there is a change in normal neurological function, any and all tissues served can and will be affected. To simplify this, a reduction in communication, in the slightest amount, of electrical potential or chemical flow (CSF) interrupts normal homeostasis. Torqued Meningeal Occlusion at the Occipital-Atlanto-Axial Junction (Subluxation) creates this challenges to intra-cranial homeostasis. Thus removal of this occlusive Subluxation can and does restore normal or near normal function and for most of my patients migraine cessation.