Migraine

Seems like I've seen something about ginger and Migraines somewhere...

Last night I had about a 7 on the pain scale - Imitrex didn't seem to impact it much - I probably waited too long to take it. Danny made me some fresh carrot-ginger juice and the pain went right down - rapidly. From a 7 to about a 3 in less than 5 minutes. then I ate dinner and the pain came back. Had some more of the juice after dinner and pain went back down.

Anyone experienced relief from ginger? I'm thinking it was most effective on an empty stomach or when it was on top of the food in my stomach.

It's making me wonder about those cayenne pepper sprays - I know ginger and cayenne are not the same, but maybe the intense spice has you release endorphins?

- megs

I know some people use ginger to settle their stomachs when they have migraine-related nausea.

I haven't tried any spices for migraine treatment. I've heard of using ginger for nausea.

Could it have been the readily available food energy in the carrot juice? Had you gotten too hungry? I know that wouldn't explain why the juice would help after supper, though.

Sounds like a great Ask the Clinician question.

Gretchen in Mississippi

I swear by ginger for my nausea. I buy ginger Altoids by the 12-pack and stash the tins everywhere. Lately I've been putting them under my tongue and they seem to take the edge off the pain sometimes as well.

I know ginger is also one of the main ingredients (along with feverfew) in the only OTC abortive, GelStat Migraine, which I believe Teri uses. As for *why* it works, I can't say.

Ginger's mostly used for nausea, and I believe it does have anti-inflamatory properties, such as the cayenne does. I've heard people mostly cite drinking ginger tea, or nibbling on crystalized ginger. More and more, though, I've seen people liking the ginger Altoids, too, since they came out. I'm not a ginger fan, because I don't care for the taste of it. But something in that Gel-Stat helped, and my guess for me is it might well have been the ginger.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the ginger for pain relief, just nausea - and killing icky stuff in your belly, that's why they serve it with sushi.

I know capsaicin, which is an ingredient in peppers (cayenne) and others, helps with pain relief.

Hi Megs,

I have actually looked this up before, because the doctors thought my daughter Amber had Juvienile Rhematiod Arthritis and we were looking for alternative meds.

Actually there have been studies done on ginger for reducing pain in osteoarthritis patients. As droolie said, I think it works as a anti-inflamatory agent. Many of the studies suggest that the findings are not significant to the amount of people studied. Here's a couple of articles I had in my favorites:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11710709



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1665874.stm

I use it it for nausea. And I don't know much about cayenne. I think both are great questions for Ask the Clinician.

Dar