Migraine is not Incurable
“Like every pain, migraine signals a problem in the body. Just not in the same location with the pain.” This is Dr. Emel Gokmen, introducing migraine and her own treatment approach. In her book “Pain Revolution – Migraine Solutions” Dr. Emel Gokmen says that it is possible to treat migraine and headaches with “Gokmen Approach” she developed “listening the pains” of almost five thousand patients. Researches show that 45% of Turkish people are suffering from headaches while 10% are chronic migraineurs.
What is pain?
Pain is the body’s cry for help.
Is pain different for everybody? Is it subjective? Does this mean that both the diagnosis and the treatment is hard?
True, pain is subjective. It depends on the experiences and the current situation of the patient. For example, I use needles for this treatment and some patients just ignore it while others almost scream. But the needle is the same. However, both of their feelings are real. I cannot say that these needles do not hurt considering what I have seen on the other patient because this one is in serious pain. The most important thing here is the diagnosis and treatment part. “Pain is the body’s cry for help,” means that it protects the body. When you touch something hot, the pain causes you to keep away from that thing. But the real problem here is to find the source and the solution when the source is not in the same place with the pain. Migraine is the most typical example to that. Though our heads are about to explode, there is nothing wrong with the brain. All scans come back clean. Because of this, conventional medicine classifies migraine as a disease the reason of which is unknown. However, migraine is the result of a problem in the body just like every other pain. Just not in the same location. Negative signals of a C-section cut can cause headaches. A tooth decay can cause headaches. Patients say “My tooth does not hurt” or the dentist says “This decay cannot cause a headache so severe”. However, if we think about the network in the body, we see that it can. Long story short, the hard part is to detect the problem.
What is “Gokmen Approach” that you described in your book?
Gokmen Approach aims curing the pain by eliminating the reason. Here the reason might be negative stimulations coming from the damages in the nerve network caused by an inflammatory, surgery or trauma; or for headaches, tooth-jaw complex. Tooth decays, wisdom teeth, false treatments, malocclusion as a result of inappropriate prosthetics or pulled out teeth and clenching play a big part in headaches. It requires a dentist to detect and heal this problems (but I do not say that all patients need a dental examination). Because if the headache is caused by a dental problem, then only a professional dentist team can heal that.
You say “You can get rid of the pain. Just be patient,” in your book. But it is hard to expect patience from a suffering patient. So why do they need that?
Actually, I said this as an answer to all patients. Gokmen Approach solves problems one by one in each session. While the treatment continues, pain’s response to the therapy, shows us new routes. Although I tell these to all patients at the beginning, a patient who has been in pain for 40 years begins feeling desperate after just 2 or 3 sessions when the pain is still there and tries to quit. Because they expect a magical touch to cure migraine in just one session. Maybe, the reason to that is me, embracing their pain like mine. So what I mean with patience here is not months or years.
There are several types of migraine. What interested me the most is “childhood migraine.” What should parents do to realize that?
In children, headaches may not be that severe and also, children cannot explain themselves well enough. But you should know that although they do not scream, they are in serious pain. The first thing parents should do is to take them seriously. Children do not use headaches as excuse. Also, if the child quits playing games, watching TV and spending time with the computer sometimes and feels like sick out of nowhere and be well the following day, one should think about migraine. Also, some kids just have vomiting attacks. This should signal to migraine as well.
We see that health is becoming a popular culture element. However, it is necessary to inform the people as well. How these two can be balanced?
You are right about the popular culture. There are many channels on the TV so you can see my colleagues in any time of the day. Although they seem like they aim to inform people, the truth is they are just another result of the supply-demand equilibrium. Everyone is interested in health and this makes it a rating source for the producers. As for the physicians, they compensate their lack of advertisement by appearing on these shows. In a way, they become the sponsors of the programs. Actually, it is beyond physicians now. A lot of these programs have private hospitals as sponsors. To me, this is not ethical anymore. I believe that it is up to us, physicians, to rebalance this. It is okay for hospitals to be the sponsors for the show but the content should be managed by the physician. They may focus on informing people and emphasize preventive medicine. I do not believe that it is possible to prevent health becoming a popular culture thing. Because it takes a society where everyone gets equal and free healthcare.
CUMHURIYET NEWSPAPER, JUNE 1, 2014