I had headaches for most of my life and so have most of the relatives in my family – you’ve got to love genetics! I had my first migraine at 4. Head pounding, light sensitive, it hurt like a hammer! I’d had a bunch of tests when I was young, the usual drill to ensure there wasn’t anything serious going on and then I was just diagnosed as unlucky I guess!
As a teenager I came across mersyndol, the codeine based headache tablets and they seemed like a godsend! The first time I took one I was literally knocked out, but that didn’t last long as my resistance built up. I started getting headaches more and more often and so to avoid having to stay home in bed, I’d just take a mersyndol before going out, just to numb the pain enough. Simple right?
The headaches got worse and more regular as I got older as I started getting more responsible jobs, more stress, tension and lots of overtime at work. I was also chain smoking and pretty unhealthy in general which didn’t help. I had shocking neck-aches and a dodgy back which probably wasn't helping and I figured it was just bad genetics and I was pre-disposed to a lifetime of headaches.
But how wrong was I? What I didn’t realise was that most of this could have been prevented! Say what? Years ago, a lecturer introduced me to the amazing effects of this little mineral called Magnesium! Now, we’ve all heard of it as its pretty common, but I never knew much about it let alone that it can be used to prevent headaches!
Pretty much, your muscles use calcium to contract and Magnesium to relax so they work in synergy. So, it’s a natural muscle relaxant! Physiotherapists use it all the time to help with cramps for athletes. I just never twigged the connection with headaches! Magnesium relaxes the nervous system, is a co-factor to > 300 enzymes, which means it helps facilitate a range of chemical reactions in your body and helps produce energy, as well as being essential for bone health.
It’s said that a lot of people are low in magnesium but who would know right? So by increasing it and the fact it has so many great health benefits means it’s more bang for your buck!
I started taking it regularly for energy reasons and then just literally stopped getting headaches! It was one of those Ah-ha moments when I couldn’t remember the last time I had one. When I think about how much my poor head and liver has suffered from all the pharmaceuticals I’d taken for most of my life, it’s truly scary and now they’ve pretty much disappeared!
Magnesium comes in all kinds of foods like spinach, broccoli, nuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts, brazil), eggs, milk, yoghurt, rice, bananas and oatmeal but you can also take a supplement to give you an initial boost. Now, I rarely get a headache, they are near non-existent!
This mineral is seriously a magical little miracle worker and probably one of the best things I’ve learnt about health in the past 20 years!
