Watermelons, Happiness, Vacations! All Cause Migraine!
Neurologist Dr. Emel Gokmen, who had suffered for years from migraine, has developed a treatment method called “Gokmen Approach” to help people like herself and wrote a book called Migraine Solutions!. According to Gokmen, it is possible to treat this disease which affects women the most.
1970s, Muğla. A little girl is having headaches so severe that sometimes she goes into a coma. Also, nausea and vomiting accompany the pain. This little girl, named Emel Gokmen, grew up suffering like this and became a successful student who studied medicine. Afterwards, when the time has come, she decided to specialize on neurology and this helped her notice that she had been suffering from migraine all those years. Neurologist Dr. Emel Gokmen, says that she did not realize that everyone in her family was a migraineur at the time. “My mom, my aunts and my cousins were migraineurs, while my dad was a cluster type headache patient who was going nuts during spring because of the pain. He would go outside and we would have to make him leave his shotgun. That was how severe his pain! And again, no one could diagnose him.”
Gokmen, seeing that headaches were making a lot of people desperate, set to work in 2004 and began treating her patients with a method called “Gokmen Approach” which is basically a combination of integrative and conventional medicine, including neural therapy, acupuncture, homeopathy and magnetic field treatment. We talked about migraine, what is causing it and the treatment methods with Gokmen, who collected the extraordinary cases she witnessed in her book Migraine Solutions by Hayykitap.
One Major Reason is Teeth!
Tooth-jaw complex plays a major role in causing migraine. Teeth cannot renew themselves and thus, the problems can only get worse over time. Also, dentists cannot always help with these problems. Sure, this does not cause migraine in everyone but if the patient is genetically has a sensitive nervous system, these negative stimulations can harm the system from time to time and cause migraine. These patients require a more extended treatment. Dentists are like general practitioners. Dentistry also has its specific areas like cleaning, stopping, canal treatments, pulling teeth, prosthetics and clenching… Some patients just got their teeth pulled as if this might stop the pain. In fact, they are partly right but getting the tooth pulled is not a solution. That just disrupts the charge distribution and causes more problems. I had a patient for example, who had been suffering from cluster type headache every day for 9 years. She did not have kids and could not get a better position at work because of the pain. According to her, these headaches started after a root canal treatment.
Even One Surgery is Enough
Nervous system is the body’s network and one thinks about the brain and nerves, spreading like cables through the body after hearing this. And then there is the autonomic nervous system, a.k.a. the connection between each cell. Each cell in our body knows about the other and they all communicate. When some part of the body is damaged somehow, an electrical change happens at the area and the whole system learns about it. Even after that scar is healed or that inflammatory is gone, if that network is still damaged it keeps sending negative signals to the body. And this, is what is causing the diseases. This method, developed by Germans in the 1900s, is not widely used in clinics. The reason to that is the fact that it is bioelectrical, not pharmacological. It is applied via injections and it uses simple local anesthetics. The aim here is creating a bioelectrical organization. And I stepped into this journey in 2004.
Watermelon Can Trigger Migraine
Migraine is thought to be the result of stress but who lives in Istanbul and is lucky enough to be stress free? No one. So, stress is not the cause. But it increases the severity of the pain. However, happiness and excitement also pushes the system to its limits. There is even a thing called the weekend migraine! The cause is happiness, over excitement and the sudden changes happening during the weekend… In fact, the reason of migraine is always there but the body tries to control it. Sleep deprivation, oversleeping, stress, southwester, hormonal changes during menstruation, eating cheese… There was a patient who had attacks after eating watermelon! When as watermelon is actually a detox food! But it was pushing his system.
Migraine’s Biggest Victims are Women
Gokmen Approach is based on the belief “If there is pain, there must be something causing it.” Pain is the body’s cry for help and thereby, it is important to find the cause. The problem does not have to be in the same place with the pain. Because I realized that a problem in the system can cause anything in any place, once I learned about the network. Usually the reason is throat infections, tooth-jaw complex and for the women, gynecological interferences like c sections, intrauterine devices or abortions. Migraine is usually seen in women and thought to be hormone related. However this possibility between girls and boys is equal until adult ages. Also, it is less likely in women who had not have gynecological interferences.
Tension Type Headache is More Common
Not every headache is migraine. There are lots of different types. If there is a migraineur around you, then it is easy to detect migraine. Usually if nausea and vomiting accompany a one-sided headache and the patient is disturbed by the light and wanting to be in a dark room, then it is migraine. However, sometimes headaches can intertwine. The most common type is tension type with a prevalence of 40%. It does not prevent the patient from their daily works and does not cause nausea, vomiting or any kinds of sensitivities. On the other hand migraine, although seen less than tension type, affects almost 1/3 of grown up women. And overall, it has a prevalence of 15%. Migraine can also affect the whole head but mostly, it is one-sided and like throbbing. Sinusitis is also thought to cause migraine but this is not true. If a migraineur has also sinusitis, then they confuse sinusitis pain with migraine.
I Was Having Worse Pains Than the Patients
Until 2004, I was working in a private hospital’s neurology department but my own headaches were worse than the patients! I was injecting needles to myself and taking drugs. Most of the days I was down. Then I felt like I was stuck and began digging into neural therapy. That showed me the way to integrative medicine and I began looking differently to my disease. I left the belief “if there is nothing wrong with the head, then the reason of migraine cannot be detected”. Instead, I realized that the system was working as a whole and the autonomic nervous system which manages the body’s network was very important. Migraine is basically the malfunctioning of the autonomic nervous system. Because during migraine attacks veins constrict and dilate, and bowel movements slow down. And these are the most basic functions of the body’s network.
Even Falling as a Child Can Be a Reason
Lots of unexpected things can cause migraine… Birth control pills, falling as a child. The most interesting case I had is in my book. A young man who could not go outside came to see me because he was unable to control his bowels since an accident he had… It was really interesting, dealing with his case. Migraine was disrupting his bowel functions. Think about it, even migraine was a minor problem compared to the thing he had. He had an accident with his motorcycle and got a scar on his temple. I applied neural therapy on that scar and fixed the nerve damage and then, he gained control on his bowels once again. After that, we controlled his headaches and he got back to his normal life.
STAR NEWSPAPER, MAY 2014