Drug-free approach that has worked for me!

Non-Pharmacological Treatment
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Hi all, I have found success with a combination of the HYH diet, Dean Watson physiotherapy and vestibular rehabilitation. By way of back story, 15 months with vestibular migraine, 3 neurologists who collectively tried me on at least half a dozen standard pharmaceutical treatments (all with side-effects and nothing worked).The turning point for me was hearing about the HYH book through this wonderful web site. Giving up caffeine was a trick, but you know the drill - happy to try anything to feel normal again! The diet gave me a 50% improvement in symptoms. The next turning point was reading about the Dean Watson approach to migraine treatment - also on this web site :grin: and then finding an amazing Physio who practiced Dean’s methods as well as vestibular rehab. After three weeks of treatment (physio combined with VR) I only have the slightest remnants of VM and am even prepared to get back on my old pushbike :wink:

So to those of you fed up with the pills, try the alternatives! The diet is a bit restricting to start with, but now that I am much improved I’m putting foods back in (so excited to be eating lemons again!!). Depending on your country, the Dean Watson method might be hard to find. I live in Australia so am lucky on that score as that is where it originated. And last but not least, DO consider vestibular rehab. It is not scary, it doesn’t make you worse, you do it at your pace and in REALLY WORKED for me.

And for those of you in Australia who wondered who the amazing physio was, its Anne-Marie McCusker in Canberra.

Wishing all of you the best for Christmas and thankyou all so much for the amazing gift of your stories, tips and wisdoms.

5 Likes
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This is wonderful to hear :slight_smile: out of interest could I ask what your symptoms were ? And how long the hyh diet took to kick in! So wonderful to read non medicaated success stories :slight_smile:

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Can you or anyone summarize a bit how the Dean Watson method is different than HYH? I’ve definitely had improvements on HYH (w/ zero caffeine) and supplements, but I was still getting nowhere after 6 months. That’s great news though, I really wanted to (and still want to) stay off the meds!

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Erik, Dean Watson is a physiotherapy technique for migraines. Very few people know this in the USA.

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Hi Amylouise, my symptoms were largely constant lightheadness, which got worse with any moving (either under my own steam or in a vehicle) and stress. When it was really bad I also found that I couldn’t hold a train of thought, my words got jumbled and my memory was affected. I went the ‘full Monty’ with the HYH diet and cut out all possible triggers as suggested. It took me about a week to taper of caffeine (I had tried before to cut out caffeine with terrible withdrawal symptoms). Once I got caffeine out of the way I found I felt better within a matter of days! It was quite remarkable.

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Hi ander454, as GetBetter has pointed out, Dean Watson is a physiotherapy technique. Dean Watson started in Australia but he has trained physios from all over the world. I know they are building a searchable list of practitioners on their website which will soon be available. I also emailed them to ask for names and they responded to me within the day. This is their web site https://watsonheadache.com/

The other thing I would highly recommend is the vestibular rehab. It starts with baby steps and you work at your own pace. Once I started that I could see results within a few days!