Headache & Migraine

Clearing the Bowel, Relaxing the Muscles, Driving Out Congestion

Understanding the Condition

A headache is a messenger. It is rarely a problem of the head itself; it is the body signaling a disturbance somewhere else. Dr. Christopher listed the usual sources: the stomach, liver or bowel, problems in the abdomen, menstrual irregularities, pinched or misaligned vertebrae in the neck, concussion, eye strain, nervous excitement and fatigue. Taking a pill quiets the messenger, but the cause is still there, and the headache comes back. Clearing the blood and the bowels is what really gets rid of headaches; numbing the pain only masks it.

Like all pain, a headache means the circulation has been disturbed. Too much blood held in the head, toxic blood, or blood choked off by tight muscles all press on the nerves, and the head pounds. Clear what is driving it and the pain lets go.

Diagram of a body showing the bowel, liver and neck muscles that drive a headache. — The common drivers behind a headache. Simplified diagram drawn for H.E.A.L.

The Toxic Headache: the Bowel

The most common headache is the toxic headache. When the bowel is backed up, the waste sitting in it is reabsorbed, and the blood carries that toxic load to the brain. Dr. Christopher taught that compressed fecal matter can also press on the nerves that affect the head, and that many migraines come from an impacted, sagging transverse colon (the part of the colon that runs across the upper belly). He saw severe migraines cleared by a catnip enema. Many people have no idea how sluggish their bowels really are. A healthy bowel moves shortly after rising and again after each main meal.

The Tension Headache: the Muscles

Tight muscles in the neck, shoulders and scalp choke off the blood flow to the head. Stress, long hours at a desk or a screen, sleeping in a chill, or an old injury such as whiplash can keep these muscles locked. Many migraines are fed by a spasm of the muscles in the neck and head. Relax the muscle and the circulation, and the pain, return to normal, often within minutes.

Congestion in the Head

Sometimes too much blood is held in the head, and the pressure builds. Pulling the blood down to the legs and driving the congestion out of the head, as the Ice Towel does, relieves it quickly.

Other Common Triggers

Not enough water. Most people walk around somewhat dehydrated. Thick blood moves slowly, and the head is often the first to complain.
Sugar and artificial sweeteners. Dr. Christopher described sugar headaches as a kind of withdrawal: the head pounds while the body works to get rid of it. Aspartame (the little blue packet) has been a migraine trigger for some people, often with a delay of up to a day, which makes it hard to pin down (see Dara’s story below).
Cheese, other dairy, meat and eggs. Common triggers. Dr. Christopher taught that no wholesome food should cause a reaction; when one does, there are usually toxins in the system reacting with it, or the food is not being chewed well. The answer is cleansing, not a lifetime of avoiding foods.
The liver. The old “sick headache,” with nausea or a bilious stomach, often points to a congested liver that can’t keep the blood clean.
Eye strain, fatigue and the menstrual cycle.

Migraine

A migraine is a severe, often one-sided, throbbing headache, sometimes with nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, or flashing lights or blind spots before it starts. The same drivers are behind it, only stronger: a toxic bowel, a liver under strain, tight neck muscles, and a trigger that tips it over. Keeping a food diary is one of the best ways to find the trigger.

The Emotional Side: the Energy Work

Healing the whole person. We are body, mind and spirit, and all three must heal together. Stress brings on many headaches. When we can’t deal with what we are feeling, our heads can pound. Worry, panic and fear are the hardest headaches of all to relieve with herbs alone.

Dr. Christopher’s advice was to combine prayer with action: take time to pray, to meditate and to talk with the people involved to work out what is causing the stress. With a clear body and mind, the conflicts become something we can handle.

Louise Hay, in her book Heal Your Body, describes these patterns:

Headaches: invalidating the self, self-criticism and fear. Turn it around: I love and approve of myself. I see myself and what I do with eyes of love. I am safe.
Migraine: dislike of being driven, and resisting the flow of life. Turn it around: I relax into the flow of life and let life provide all that I need, easily and comfortably. Life is for me.

Emotional patterns paraphrased from Louise Hay, Heal Your Body (Hay House).

Areas Affected & Opening the Way to Healing

The areas involved are the bowel, the liver, the muscles of the neck and shoulders, the nerves, and the circulation to the head. Find what is driving the headache and clear it: waste out, fresh blood and nutrients in.

Clear the Bowels

This is the first step for any headache that keeps coming back. Use LBF (Lower Bowel Formula #1), starting with one capsule at dinner and adding one capsule a day until the bowels move two or three times a day. The average person uses three to five a day; some need many more. A castor oil pack over the bowel the first few evenings softens hardened waste so it can move. If the bowels become loose or crampy, a rounded teaspoon of LBF #2 in 6 oz of water or juice firms them within minutes.

For a headache right now, empty the bowel first. A catnip enema clears the lower bowel quickly and has ended severe migraines. Then use the Ice Towel.

Drive Out the Congestion: the Ice Towel

This is hydrotherapy at its best, and it has never failed to clear a toxic headache for Dara. Empty the bowels first if you can.

Prepare the towel. Wet a hand towel, wring it out, fold it in thirds lengthwise and freeze it until icy, about 45 minutes. Keep one in the freezer so it is ready.
Hot water for the legs. Fill a bucket with water as hot as can be borne, deep enough to come up to the knees.
Put it together. Sit with the legs in the hot water and wrap the icy towel around the head. The cold drives the congestion out of the head while the heat pulls the excess blood down to the legs. Add hot water to keep the bucket hot.
10 to 15 minutes. Most people begin to feel real relief within this time.
A hot bath works too. Instead of the bucket, sit in a hot bath with the icy towel wrapped around the head like a turban. The hot water draws the blood to the lower body just the same.

For a really severe migraine, Dr. Christopher used the same idea on a larger scale: cold packs on the head and neck while soaking in a very hot tub, drinking plenty of water.

Relax the Muscles

M&L Salve (mullein & lobelia). Massage it into the back of the neck, the shoulders and the base of the skull. Lobelia is the best antispasmodic we have, and the mullein helps move excess lymph fluid out of an injured area. It relaxes even the worst spastic muscles, often within minutes, and works on tension headaches even when whiplash is involved. Applied at bedtime, it helps prevent the night pain that comes when sore neck muscles get chilled.
Keep the neck warm. A chill on sore neck muscles at night can throw them into spasm. Keep a natural-fiber scarf on the bedpost or headboard; if you wake with a headache starting, pull it around your neck, and it often eases within minutes. While the neck is healing, wear the scarf over the M&L Salve at night. It holds the salve in place, keeps it out of your hair and off the sheets and pillow.
Antispasmodic Extract or Lobelia by mouth. For a severe spasm, take a dropperful along with the salve. Take it in a few ounces of hot water to drive off the alcohol; a swallow of juice or a nice tea afterward helps the taste.
Hot and cold over the neck and shoulders, and a good massage, bring fresh blood back into tight muscles.
BF&C for an old injury. When a neck injury such as whiplash keeps feeding the headaches, a BF&C pack over the neck overnight helps repair the muscle and cartilage.

Calm the Nerves

G-Nervine Salve and the General Nervine. The nervine herbs calm throbbing nerve pain. Rub the salve on the temples, forehead, the back of the neck and behind the ears; it works well together with the M&L Salve. The General Nervine tincture can be taken by mouth in hot water. The valerian in it is sedating, so expect to feel sleepy and plan to rest.
Peppermint. Drink a cup of hot peppermint tea, then lie down and relax. A cloth wrung out in water with peppermint added, laid over the forehead and temples, gives quick relief for many; wet it again as it dries.
Rosemary. At the first sign of a headache, breathe in the scent of rosemary and rub a little rosemary oil, diluted in a carrier oil, on the temples and the back of the neck. Rosemary stimulates the circulation in the small vessels, bringing more blood and oxygen in and carrying waste out.

Feed and Support the Body

Water. Drink plenty of pure water every day, sipping through the day rather than all at once.
Live food and juices. Celery juice, or celery and apple, is an old remedy for a sick headache. Cut sugar, artificial sweeteners, and heavy dairy and meat while cleansing.
Superfood for steady nutrition, and rest. A depleted body is quick to get headaches.
Fresh air and movement. People who exercise and then stop let the toxins build up again. Just getting outdoors and moving strongly can clear a headache.
The liver. For the sick headache, or headaches that keep coming back, a week of liver flushing helps clear the blood.

When to Get Medical Care

Herbs are support alongside medical care, not a replacement for it. Get emergency care right away for a sudden, explosive headache, the worst of your life; a headache with a stiff neck and fever; a headache after a blow to the head; or a headache with confusion, slurred speech, weakness or numbness on one side, loss of vision, or a seizure. These can be signs of a stroke, bleeding in the brain or meningitis.

See a doctor for headaches that are new after age 50, that grow steadily worse, that wake you from sleep, or that change pattern. Don’t stop a prescribed medication without the doctor.

Level of Commitment

How much is needed depends on how often the headaches come:

Gentle support. For the occasional headache with a plain cause. The Ice Towel, M&L and G-Nervine Salves, peppermint tea, plenty of water and a bowel that moves well. Most clear within the hour.
Focused cleansing. For headaches that come every week, or migraines. Bowel cleansing with LBF until the bowels move after every meal, a week of liver flushing, then an ELF (Emergency Liver Flush) once a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in. Find and remove food triggers, drink plenty of water, and keep the neck muscles relaxed. Give it about three months.
Incurables Program. For headaches that come from a serious or long-standing disease. Get a medical diagnosis first, then follow the sheet for that condition; the headaches will ease as the blockage behind them clears.

A Loose Healing Plan

In the moment: rule out an emergency. Then find what kind of headache it is: toxic, tension, or both.
First hour: clear it. Empty the bowel (a catnip enema if needed), then the Ice Towel for 10 to 15 minutes. M&L and G-Nervine Salves on the neck and temples for a tension headache. Rest.
Same day onward: get the bowels moving. LBF, building up one capsule a day, and plenty of water.
First weeks: find the trigger. Keep a food diary. Cut sugar and artificial sweeteners; watch cheese, other dairy, meat and eggs.
Week 2: clear the source. A week of liver flushing, then an ELF once a week, with weeks of kidney flushing alternated in.
All along: relax the neck and the heart. M&L Salve at bedtime, fresh air, movement, and time to pray and let go of what you’ve been holding.
About 3 months: take stock. Most people find the headaches have become rare. When one comes, check the bowels first.

Stories from the Work

Dara’s Story: The 24-Hour Migraine

Shortly after the birth of my daughter in 1982, while Michael and I were dating and living in California, I began experiencing excruciatingly painful migraines. I lived with these horrid headaches for years. The pain forced me to lie in a dark room with a cold washcloth over my eyes. My doctor ruled out anything serious and gave me a strong pain medication. It got me back on my feet, but this was not my idea of living.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. Weeks would go by and then out of the blue I’d be laid out with horrible pain. I began keeping a record of everything I put in my mouth. My normal lunch was a sandwich and a glass of unsweetened tea. One day I ran out of my tea and accepted a glass of my friend’s diet tea. Exactly 24 hours later, almost to the minute, I was laid out with a ghastly migraine. It had been a few months since my last one, and the only change was the aspartame sweetener, the little blue packet, in that tea. My father explained that it made my brain swell. It took about 24 hours from the time I took it in until my brain was pounding and I was about ready to pass out, and that delay was why it had taken so long to find.

Removing all artificial sweeteners from my food program in 1985 stopped these painful migraines.

Dara’s Story: Bowel Cleansing Away My Headaches

As far back as I can remember I had headaches. Often the discomfort was just enough to send me looking for a bottle of aspirin. No one ever asked, and I assumed everyone got headaches for no reason. My bowels moved once in the morning and maybe a bit later in the day, and I thought that was about right.

Clearing the sweetener stopped the migraines, but it did not get my bowels working well, so the headaches kept coming until I found the bowel connection. In 1998 I did my first bowel cleanse. Wow, what an experience! The immense amount of waste eliminated from my body flattened my pouchy stomach and brought an end to thirty-eight years of headaches. These days it is only when I fail to keep my bowels clear that I have to deal with head pain or a stiff neck.

The cesspool I had been holding in my bowels had been putrefying my entire body, creating a toxic condition in my brain. Over the next nine months I continued the bowel cleansing routines. My inflamed bowel healed, along with a case of irritable bowel syndrome I had developed years before. My bowels had been speaking loudly to me for years: one day too loose, the next not moving at all, and horrid cramps if I ate the wrong foods. Bowel cleansing became the beginning of my healing journey. Cleansing and healing my bowels was better than discovering the fountain of youth.

Dara’s Story: My Husband’s Ice Towel

My husband still gets a headache from time to time. He wraps an ice towel around his head like a turban and sits in a hot bath. The ice towel drives the toxic blood out of the brain, and the hot water draws it down to the lower body. It was supposed to be a bucket of hot water for his legs, but he is too grumpy when his head hurts, so I let him have the bathtub.

Dara’s Story: Whiplash from an Office Chair

My office chair rolled out from under me and I landed hard on the tile floor. I felt fine at first and slept well that first night. Around 2 a.m. the second night I woke to a searing pain in my head; it felt like someone was sticking a knife into my brain. Struggling into the bathroom, I found my jar of M&L Salve and smeared it liberally around my neck. Relief came in less than two minutes. The salve began working on contact, and the pain stopped before I had crossed the room back to my bed.

Over the next few months I used the M&L Salve nightly along with BF&C packs. The M&L Salve stops the spasm, while the BF&C works to knit the damaged area back together.

For a while after that, if my neck and shoulders got chilled at night, I would wake in pain. M&L Salve at bedtime let me sleep through. One night I forgot, woke about 3 a.m., and used both the G-Nervine Salve and the M&L Salve. In less than five minutes the pain was completely gone and I went back to sleep.

That neck will likely be a weak spot for the rest of my life. Summer is no problem, but I like sleeping in a cool room, and the winter chill in the bedroom causes the neck muscles to spasm. I keep a natural-fiber scarf on the headboard. When I wake with a headache trying to form, I just pull the scarf around my neck, and in minutes it all goes away. While it was healing, I wore the scarf over the M&L Salve I smeared around my neck. It kept the salve in place, out of my hair and off the sheets and pillow.

Whiplash is no small thing. In 1976 my mother received whiplash in a car accident. I was in my late teens and remember vividly the horrid headaches she endured. She never fully recovered from that neck injury, and struggled through periods of debilitating neck and back pain for the rest of her life.

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This information is for education only. It is not meant to diagnose, treat or replace care from a qualified health professional.