My migraines were due to a decrease in the neurotransmitter Norepinephrine!

Happy New Year everyone.  This is an interloper post due to a significant discovery.

I wanted to write all this in my health journal, but decided to get it down on here first, as it might help others and I would love to hear from fellow sufferers on this topic.

Basically, as a complete (and utter) accident I found out that the root cause of my horrible migraines are, in all likelihood, due a lack of a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine.

Norepinephrine is very hard to pronounce, and spell, and now that I come to research it, its no wonder hardly anyone mentions it, because it is a very difficult word.

Nomenclature aside.  There I was steadily improving with my migraines, to the point of not needing pain killers or peppermint pills or even peppermint oil up the nose anymore.

I honestly thought I was home and dry (poor misguided idiot!).  

Then, last November my poor dog got really sick.  He'd been sick in the head for about 3 years, but eventually his neurological problems affected his physical processes.  

The stress of the situation kept mounting and I seemed to be coping quite well.  

I had some simultaneous dental problems, e.g. 3 undiscovered abscesses on a large upper molar which also took up a lot of my time (like going to the dentist to be told my teeth were fine, then going along to the A&E department to also be told there was nothing wrong with me).  It took a dental surgeon's 'surgeon' to tell me 'sorry, I can see from my x-ray of your head that you have indeed suffered quite a lot, haven't you."

I didn't care about my tooth, I was more worried about our dog.  Then the poor thing died.  Then all the guilt and pain of grief poured out.  

Then I had to sort out a badly flooded property, which involved complete gutting.  

Then my plumber said I had to make a decision about my own bathroom as he was busy for the next 6 months.  So after the grief, after the flood, and then after all the dust of 100 tiles being cut in my bedroom, I kind of flipped out.

First I couldn't sleep that well.  Then I became really grouchy.  Then we had some visitors for the holidays.  That's when I started to really zone out.  I don't know how, but I managed to see the visitors off very well, they thanked me for all my kindnesses. 

Then I started to get incredible pain in my knees and elbows.  I did not have polyuria and I did not have sugar cravings or any of the other things that used to signal to me that I was going to get ill.

Then I got a migraine and it went on and on, and on, for 3 long agonising days.  

I tried everything: FeverFew, Ipriflavone, Salt Tonic, Apple Cider Vinegar, Peppermint...blah blah blah.

Plus, I hardly got off the toilet, my bowels were just crazy.

I got so incredibly low, I sat there and convinced myself I was dying of a brain tumour?  In fact my fear took a much more graphic course, I imagined that I had an abscess deep within my brain, that had migrated from my tooth (this can happen, oddly enough) and that I was going to die in my sleep and I would not have the chance to visit Brighton again?

When I got up the next day, the pain all over my head was so bad, I just sat there wondering how long an ambulance would take, considering it was a bank holiday?

Then I started to really think about what happened to me last year, and what made me feel better?

Then I remembered that one of the things I took that helped, but I had stopped taking it, was vitamin B5 in mega doses of 500mg.  As it was the last thing on my list, I remembered that I had noticed before Christmas, that I still had some of those pills left?  So I went upstairs and brought the bottle down.

Now the funny thing was, that I recognised that I was very low and very depressed by that time, but I had continued to take 5-HTP throughout and yet I was still miserable?

I concluded that, whatever was wrong with me, it was not linked to serotonin.  We read so much about serotonin but no one ever mentions its partner in crime: norepinephrine...

Then, as usual, I decided I wanted a divorce there and then (!).  I called my husband downstairs, I said I wanted to speak to him urgently.  While I waited for him to come down, I took one of those huge Pantothenic Acid pills.  

Eventually he came down.  I had my speech prepared, I was worried what I had to say wouldn't come out clearly enough.  After about 20 minutes of speaking to him, I noticed that the pain in my head had subsided but I didn't pay it much attention?

Then I noticed that my speech was cohesive again, quite unlike the emotional outbursts of the preceding 3 weeks.  Then I got up to make a cup of tea and noticed that I could walk around normally and that my body didn't seem like seven drunken louts had beaten me up one week before anymore....

When we concluded our chat, where we inevitably discussed where we would go on holiday this year (of course I didn't want a divorce, but I did want some kind of change.  I have later discovered that this is a 'classic symptom' of norepinephrine insufficiency.)

Well, it turns out that norepinephrine is our most important neurological anti-inflammatory chemical and it protects the brain in times of great stress.  Basically, when we are stressed, our brains are flooded with oxygen due to the vasodilatory effect of dopamine, then norepinephrine comes along and prevents the brain from blowing-up under all that pressure.  

Now most of our body's need for norepinephrine is met by the.....................you guessed it: The Adrenal Glands.

Well, everyone knows that last year I had adrenal fatigue and that my cortisol levels were so low they were off the scale.  

So it appears focusing on cortisol and serotonin were not ever really going to solve my problems.  And lets not forget all the attention I've given to dear old progesterone and oestrogen.

No readers, my problem all along seems to have been with norepinephrine.

Now there are 3 ways that you can increase norepinephrine naturally, one is increase your vitamin C, the other is to take Ginseng, and the other way is to take PANTOTHENIC ACID aka Vitamin B5.

Pantothenic Acid in fact helps us to make all 3 'inhibitory' neurotransmitters, which are: norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine.  

Now you might be thinking, oh, but by taking B5 you probably made more serotonin and that's what really helped you.  No!  Remember, I had been taking 5-HPT every day for more than 2 months to cope with all my stress.  

In this way, I have unequivocally proved to myself that its probably been norepinephrine all along that has caused these darn migraines.

On a quick googling of the phenomenon I can see this is a well established connection, but its not one I had come across on general searches of the causes of migraines.  I'm now reading a book about norepinephrine and will provide links to everything next time. 

(I know I've said that before, but my dog was sick then and things were really difficult - GRHS)