Fighting the Migraine Epidemic—Complete Guide: How to Treat & Prevent Migraines Without Medications
By Angela A. Stanton, PhD
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Very few people could read this book and not learn amazing things and valuable information about migraines. The author herself has a lot of firsthand experience with migraines and has developed a protocol that works consistently for her and thousands of others. As always, it is critical to understand what the real problem is.
One thing to understand is that those prone to migraines have brains that are structurally different than those of everyone else. Migraines are not due to mental illness or psychological problems. They are not all in your head. Stanton does not see migraines as an illness so much as a different kind of brain that requires different support. In fact, those prone to migraines have special abilities that are quite surprising. These include the ability to hear a whisper in a distant room; distinguish by smell the difference between bacterial and viral infections; smell type 2 diabetes; taste chemicals in broccoli, spinach, and other foods that could be toxic in larger amounts; have highly sensitive peripheral vision; and so on.
Another fundamental thing to know is the role of voltage in the brain. When voltage gets too low, bad things start to happen. The migraine-prone brain uses more voltage than other brains. This can lead to weird problems like zapping computer keyboards, cell phones, digital watches or your pet cat. So what causes voltage to get too low?
One of the main things is a high-carb diet. Carbohydrates interfere with electrolyte levels that are critical to proper voltage control. How does one fix this? There is no drug, herb or pill that addresses the core problem. Balanced electrolytes are essential. One of the first recommendations is chicken soup. Chicken broth is the perfect electrolyte. Salt is very important. Migraine sufferers need much more salt than other people because of the higher voltage requirements of their brains. Contrary to popular opinion, Stanton warns that Himalayan salt is not a good option. It contains lead and mercury and maybe other things you don’t want.
Stanton also points out that calcium and other minerals are an important factor in electrolytes, and calcium is fat-soluble. That means that calcium alone won’t do you any good. It needs to come with fat. She recommends cheese or whole milk (that’s whole milk, not white water lowfat milk), and she even recommends adding extra cream. Because carbohydrates are a major problem, she recommends a high-fat diet in general—milk, cheese, meat, eggs and so on. It is all very consistent with a Wise Traditions diet. She emphasizes that salt and cholesterol are your friends, not poisons to be feared.
Stanton also has interesting things to say about some of the popular diet fads. She has not been able to find any two people who agree on what exactly a paleo diet is, so that is of no use. Vegan and vegetarian diets are too low in certain essential nutrients, and she has no help to offer anyone who must adhere to those diets. Low FODMAP diets are also no good. Between the nutritional advice and the exceptional insight into the true nature of migraines, this book is an easy thumbs UP.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Winter 2018
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Little confused. This author states that calcium is a fat soluble vitamin. Now, it may be true that calcium does better when ingested with a fat, but that doesn’t make it fat soluble. A, D, E, and K are the fat soluble vitamins.
Kathryn,
Calcium is water soluble but in our body it needs to adhere on top of a lattice formed by protein that creates the bone. Calcium is a powder and is unable to adhere to a protein lattice and must use fat to deposit. D3 and K2 (both fat-soluble vitamins) help calcium adhere to the protein lattice, thereby calcium behaving as if it were fat-soluble.
This is why, supplementing calcium in the form of a tablet without also adding these fat-soluble vitamins will simply increase calcium in the blood, adding to vascular inflammation, without the calcium ever making it to the bone let alone depositing as bone itself.
Therefore, a short-cut to what this all means is to suggest that calcium in the human body is fat-soluble. I hope this helps.
Angela
Hi Angela,
how do you measure the sodium and potassium in homemade chicken broth? No salt added- did add celery, onions, garlic, parsley, bay leaves and peppercorns, but removed all before straining. (I weighed all the veggies on scale and looked at USDA database, but removed the solids from the broth) Thought it might be balanced. I just consume when getting a cold or sinus infection. Thank you – Best – Olga