Migraine and Epilepsy

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THE MAJORITY of illnesses can be helped by herbalism. Illnesses fall broadly into those which are self-limiting, because they tend to get better in time, without any help, chronic conditions which fluctuate but never seem to clear up entirely, as well as those caused by various types of stress. Only a small proportion (20%) of these are the result of an acute medical condition. It is this last category which may fail to benefit from herbal medicine, but even here many herbalists feel they can help if they can catch such serious conditions early.

I am not decrying the benefits of modern medicine. I would be the last one to refuse surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, but then all surgery is not necessarily of the life-saving variety. Much of it could be avoided by the intelligent use of preventative medicine, and it is here that herbalism proves so useful. A good herbalist is very much concerned with prevention. The problem is that most patients, in my experience, do not consult a herbalist until the damage has been done and very often as a last resort, having dragged themselves from one specialist to another, hoping for what increasingly becomes “a miracle cure”, as their condition deteriorates.

I know that Jan de Vries encounters this scenario as often as I do but I suspect he handles it with much more patience, humanity and foresight! This excellent book is one of a series he is writing which instructs the public about self-care. I am delighted that he is setting himself the task of capturing a lifetime’s experience in words and passing on that treasure to other people. He has an extraordinary combination of in-depth knowledge and highly developed intuition and inventiveness. He displays more compassion and heart-felt concern than any other practitioner I have encountered. Above all, he is extremely practical. He would readily agree that although comfrey root poultices were used in the old days to mend fractures, an X-ray and a cast are preferable today. After all, a fracture may need to be surgically pinned. He knows more readily than I that acute appendicitis teetering on peritonitis calls for emergency surgery, not enemas and abdominal packs. But, like me, he sees a heart-breaking number of patients who, for example, have been on drugs for high blood pressure for ten or twenty years. This is surely not correcting or healing the condition. Such dependencies are the result of many years of ignoring or improperly treating the initial signs of high blood pressure or the malfunctioning organ system that induces the blood pressure to rise in the first place. If caught early, most cases of high blood pressure can certainly be cured without drugs. Time and again both of us see acute illnesses that have been badly handled and as a result they degenerate into chronic disease where drugs are then administered in an endless stream.

It seems today that antibiotics are prescribed like Smarties for the mildest bacterial infection and often for viral ones as well — where they are absolutely useless. There are some effective herbal antibiotics but where, rarely, allopathic antibiotics are required and their use justified by life-threatening illness, they would work superbly if the patient were not already antibiotic-resistant. This is the result of sipping away at too many antibiotic courses as well as eating hidden antibiotics in animal produce. It is Jan de Vries’ great concern to teach his patients how to live and eat properly as well as helping them with appropriate herbal medicines.

The overall problem with a surgical or drug-based approach to illness is that it concentrates on symptoms as they arise, and therefore a patient is often at the furthest reach of the disease pattern before decisions as to how to treat it can be made. But most diseases begin years before such radical intervention is required. I am always somewhat bemused by patients who tell me they have just developed arthritis over the last six months. This is a classic example of a disease that takes years and years to build up in the body before manifesting its symptoms of pain, stiffness and swelling. Various types of headaches are endured for years and the painful symptoms vainly suppressed with allopathic medication. More than anyone else I know, Jan de Vries appreciates that by ignoring or suppressing such symptoms as they manifest themselves from babyhood or childhood on, we are pushing the body towards catastrophe. It is our experience that such catastrophe is hitting people at an earlier and earlier age. He tells me about treating diverticulitis in young children, being presented with juvenile diabetes in seven-year-olds and polyarthritis in teenagers.

While working punishingly long hours in unswerving dedication to his thousands of patients, he can still see through this gloom some light at the end of the tunnel. He is utterly convinced about the intelligence, love and humanity that shines in everyone and it is this conviction which shows itself so clearly in his writing and in his work. He is by no means a “back to nature” fanatic nor does he regard herbalism as a universal panacea. I suspect in an ideal world he would prefer to encourage the mingling of the knowledge and talents of the synthesist and the naturalist so that we could all benefit from the larger view without missing out on minute truths. I know he would like to see preventive health-care as embedded in herbal medicine employed to its best advantage so that it could enjoy at least an equal footing with modern interventionist medicine.

This excellent and comprehensive book covers everything concerned with head pain and points out how vital correct diagnosis is. It discusses everything from common migraines through to epilepsy and, as with all his work, Jan offers practical and sensible advice. But there is a thread of God-given intuition that runs through everything he does and it is this that makes this book so illuminating. Read it, enjoy it and, above all, benefit from it.

“THANK GOODNESS for headaches,” I once heard an elderly homoeopathic doctor exclaim. Because I was young and inexperienced, I considered this a very strange statement and could not help wondering how I was supposed to interpret it. He then continued to explain that headaches should be considered as an alarm signal, a warning that there is something wrong somewhere in the body. Headaches, therefore, should not be casually treated by merely taking an aspirin or a painkiller, for example.

A good doctor should investigate what the possible cause of the headache might be. In homoeopathy we do not aim to treat the symptoms, but the body as a whole. A seemingly simple headache may give us a clue to an often much bigger problem. Knowledge of this doctrine will give us a greater degree of insight and understanding of the statement by this experienced homoeopathic practitioner.

Dr Alfred Vogel explains the same doctrine in different words. During his lectures he will often tell his audience that when the church is on fire, the bells will be rung to warn everyone of the danger of the fire spreading. It is easy enough to stop the bells ringing, but the fire will spread relentlessly. This is only cured on the arrival of the fire engines to extinguish the fire.

This illustration contains the same message as the above-mentioned practitioner’s statement about headaches. When subjected to a headache, one takes a couple of aspirins. By doing so, the ringing of the bells is stopped — the alarm signal is switched off. The fire, however, has not been extinguished, and may actually continue to spread.

Although it is often claimed to be “only a headache”, especially if it occurs frequently, that headache may be the indication of something much more serious than just an inconvenient pain.

Although the main subjects dealt with in this book are migraines and epilepsy, I don’t believe it is out of place if we first have a look at headaches. It is one thing to have an occasional headache, but quite a different matter to suffer frequent attacks of migraine. Mostly when people suffer headaches, these result from nervous tension. It is obviously more reassuring to think of one’s headache as a result of nerves or a stressful situation. One should, however, not discount the possibility that it might be an indication of something more serious.

—a neck or back problem;

—sleeping in unaccustomed surroundings;

—an addiction to coffee or chocolate;

—even the price to be paid for certain indulgences the previous evening.

A headache may also point to hypoglycaemia, ie low blood sugar. Alternatively, it could indicate an allergy, hypertension, or even be due to a previous head injury. A disease from the eyes, nose, throat, ears or teeth could be to blame; or more seriously, it could be traced back to an intracranial tumour.

Fortunately the conditions mentioned in the previous paragraph relate to only a small percentage of headaches. Nevertheless, I still emphasise that headaches should never be neglected, especially if they are recurring ones. Let us not ignore the fact that a headache may be an alarm signal to forewarn us of possibly unsuspected and seemingly unconnected health problems.

I well remember the young lady who, on entering my consulting room, pleaded for some manipulation of her neck. It appeared that she frequently suffered bad headaches and she had convinced herself that they were the result of neck problems. Having listened to the background information with which she provided me, I tried to localise the pain. I had to tell her, however, that I considered it unwise to manipulate her without first being able to study some X-rays of the area in question. To be precise, I informed her that I would prefer it if she saw her own doctor for further investigation.

Fortunately I knew her doctor quite well and I made a point of telephoning him to talk about this patient. After he had examined her, he decided to send her immediately for X-rays and a brain scan. Within a short time a successful operation had taken place to remove a brain tumour and this saved her life. This goes to show how careful we must be in our work and again emphasises the fact that a simple headache may serve as a pointer to seemingly unrelated problems.

The majority of people who consult us, however, can be helped by some gentle manipulation or massage. If the cause of the headache is diagnosed correctly, much can be done to rectify the situation.

Unfortunately there is widespread misunderstanding concerning supposedly “simple” headaches. An elderly patient argued with me not so long ago that her chronic constipation had nothing to do with her headaches. Finally, I obtained her permission to treat her constipation and she did promise her co-operation, although she was by no means convinced of a possible connection. Both problems disappeared, however, as a result of the single treatment.

Why does this happen and, indeed, where lies the cause? Could stomach, liver, kidney or bowel problems really have any bearing on whether or not one suffers from headaches? I definitely believe this to be the case and it is for this reason that I dare to stress the danger of suppressing headaches with painkillers or other drugs.

A patient asked me recently if there was such a thing as a nervous headache. Of course there is: nervous headaches are a signal of an over-worked nervous system and patients who are prone to such conditions usually respond well to treatment.

“Why have my headaches disappeared?” asked another, youngish patient, after having followed a prescribed vitamin course. She could not understand the possibility of a connection between headaches and the recommended course of treatment. I then explained to her that, in her case, it was a deficiency of Vitamin B3 which had triggered off her headaches. When the level of Niacin had been corrected, her headaches disappeared.

Is it really as simple as that, or is there more to it? I strongly believe that every person’s make-up is different and therefore individual diagnoses are required to get to the root of the problem. Once again I was reminded how difficult it could be when I was asked to treat a middle-aged lady who suffered almost constant headaches.

I had asked her if she had any idea why she should suffer these headaches and she insisted that she could not think of any possible reason. From her history I knew that she was badly congested with mucus and also that she regularly suffered from infected sinuses, but she refused to believe that she lacked oxygen. Yet she always looked pale and depressed.

More than anything else she needed to change her lifestyle to stimulate a more efficient oxygen supply. When I checked her over I also found that her liver was not working to capacity. As always with headaches or migraines, I will check the working of the liver, and I very often find that there is room for improvement here.

The liver is an important factor in the causes, and thus control, of headaches, migraines and epilepsy. The liver is the regulator of our health and acts as a very carefully tuned filter. It really could be compared with a laboratory and in that capacity, if taken care of, it is one of the most efficient examples of a refinery which nature has to offer us. Its greatest adversaries are some of the things we eat and drink, as this may affect the proper functioning of this organ and place it under stress. Among the results could be headaches and migraine.

However, we cannot then blame the liver, but rather ourselves. We tend to take our liver, this relatively small, but incredibly sophisticated organ, for granted. If only we could appreciate the fact that the liver filters 1,200 pints of blood during a period of twenty-four hours! Perhaps then we would recognise the marvellous achievements of which this organ is capable. Yet, on the contrary, we often overload the liver with alcohol, animal fats, nicotine, drugs and other unwise foodstuffs and fully expect this organ to process these in the normal manner. By doing so, we create a stress situation for the liver, making its task unnecessarily difficult.

So often, after patients have heeded my advice and followed a diet which has been especially designed to stimulate the actions of the liver, they will tell me afterwards how pleased they are with the results. The oxygen factor in these complaints is often forgotten, even though the liver thrives on oxygen.

Allergic headaches are mostly caused by eating the wrong foods or products, to which there could be an allergic reaction of which the patient is unaware. Again, the liver is given so much extra work that the alarm bells start to ring, warning us that help is needed. This help often consists of a change to a better diet, possibly some fasting, or the removal from the diet of those foods to which an allergy may have become apparent.

I remember one young man who constantly suffered headaches, yet for a long time he refused to accept that he was allergic to chocolate. Nevertheless, when he finally did overcome his choclate addiction, he felt so much better and his headaches disappeared.

There was also the patient whose headaches were caused by the atmosphere in which he worked. On top of that he had developed an allergy to dust. I treated him with homoeopathic remedies, together with a change in his diet, and he quickly regained his health and vigour. I still often meet him and he will always give me a wave and make a point of telling me that he no longer suffers those headaches.

Headaches which are due to sinusitis are also connected with what we eat and drink. The relatively simple step of removing milk, dairy products and salt from the diet, may result in the end of sinusitis headaches. I usually suggest that some honey is introduced into the diet of these people and they generally report afterwards that they feel so much better.

MIGRAINE AND EPILEPSY