Finding a Good Medical Practitioner

So far, we’ve seen that to get relief for my migraines, I’ve had to make sure I’m getting enough magnesium, that I’m dealing with possible leaky gut problems and balancing my hormones both because of the direct migraine trigger effect and the indirect hormone/enzyme connection. I also eat lots of cherries for their beneficial effects (See previous blog entries on each of these subjects).

Now comes, in my opinion, the clincher: finding a good medical practitioner.

I’ve spent years and hundreds of dollars trying to find someone who could really find a solution to my migraine problem. Until recently, none of them were able to help me get rid of them. All of the practitioners were sincere and most of them helped in some way, but in the end I still got excruciating head pain.

I’ve run into people over the years who’ve told me: “I used to get migraines and then my doctor injected something into the back of my neck and I’ve been fine ever since.”

With others, it was a certain prescription or a chiropractic manipulation or a certain food they had to avoid…  I’m really happy that for those people, the solution was simple and they were able to get on with their life.

I’ve tried most if not all of these things and none of them worked for me. I went for loads of chiropractic sessions; they really helped my back, hip and neck, but I still got migraines.

I went for countless acupuncture treatments, some of which provided some help, others made me worse (again, maybe no fault of the practitioners, just didn’t work for me), I still got migraines.

I went for a week-long colonic irrigation treatment; I got very clean bowels, but still lots of migraines.

I’ve had scopes (upper and lower!), an MRI, X-rays, blood tests, urine tests, and I have a drawer full of supplements that I’ve tried. But I still got migraines.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-medical establishment. I’ve really appreciated both the over-the-counter and the prescription medications that have alleviated the pain all these years. I can readily appreciate why some people committed suicide in the days before our modern migraine meds. The pain is so debilitating and it seems so hopeless, that I can see why people gave up.

I even went to a couple of naturopaths who helped in their own way, but I still got migraines.

As you can imagine, I was despairing that I would ever find a doctor who could cure my migraines. I had spent so much time and money, that I almost thought migraines were inevitable for me.

Then this April, I was so desperate (I had started to keep a migraine diary again, and I was having severe migraines at least 15 days a month, even though I was very strict about my diet, sleep habits, stress reduction etc.) that I decided to try another local naturopath who was having a lot of success treating some friends of mine.

I’m so glad I did. His name is Dr. Kumar Biswas and he’s really very good. He had me fill out an extensive health questionnaire and then did some Vega testing to see what might be causing my symptoms. I really don’t know how this testing works, but it does work for me and others. (See http://www.getwellhere.com/pdf/vega-testing.pdf for an explanation of Vega testing. You’ll also find negative press about it online, everyone has to make their own choices).

Dr. Biswas prescribed some homeopathic pellets and drops and some acidophilus for me to take, as well as some other lymphatic cleansing measures (more on that in a separate entry). All of that, combined with my ‘anti-leaky gut’ diet,  bio-identical hormone therapy and regular magnesium (see separate posts), has made a BIG difference in my life.

Unfortunately, Dr Biswas is gone now, he has moved to BC, but I learned a lot from him and his treatment.

There's also a good naturopath named Teresa Donavan at Root Cause Health and Wellness clinic, also in Antigonish. Her number is: 902 735 3995. Among her other treatments, she provides 'cold' laser using equipment and training from Dr Fred Khan at Bioflex laser in Toronto.