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Alternative and Complementary Approaches to Migraine and Cluster Headaches

Alternative Approaches to Headaches Introduction

In the United States, the field of alternative and complementary medicine is growing rapidly and includes the treatment of many health conditions, including pain. In 2002, according to a government survey of approximately 31,000 people, more than a third of American adults used such practices. This was the largest study on unconventional medical approaches in the United States. If prayer is included as an alternative form of therapy, then approximately 62% of American adults are using some form of nonconventional treatment.  

Alternative and complementary medicine includes such practices as acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, meditation, herbs, homeopathy, and manipulation, to name but a few. Another term, which reflects the use of these therapies within the concepts of Western medical practice, is integrative medicine. Many physicians who are board-certified in their respective specialties, and who have sought additional training in alternative and complementary care, prefer to use this term because it encompasses the best of both worlds in the overall management of a patient. 
 
Over the last decade, integrative medical practices have increasingly been used for the management of chronic pain. This article provides a general overview of the more commonly used integrative medical approaches for the management of pain, specifically the pain of migraine and cluster headaches.



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Alternative and Complementary Approaches to Migraine and Cluster Headaches

Mitral Valve Prolapse Overview

Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is also called click-murmur syndrome, floppy mitral valve syndrome, and Barlow syndrome after the doctor who first described MVP.

The mitral valve is one of 4 valves in the heart. It opens and closes to control blood flow between the heart's left atrium and the left ventricle. The mitral valve has 2 flaps, or "leaflets."

In mitral valve prolapse, one or both leaflets of the valve are too large, or the chordae tendinea (the strings attached to the underside of the leaflets, connected to the ventricular wall) are too long (redundant), resulting in uneven closure of the valve during each heartbeat. Because of uneven closure of the leaflets, the valve bulges back, or "prolapses," into the left atrium like a parachute. When this happens, a very small amount of blood may leak through, moving backward from the ventricle to the atrium.

The valve still wo...

Read the Mitral Valve Prolapse article »



Read What Your Physician is Reading on eMedicine

Migraine Headache »

Although migraine is a term applied to certain headaches with a vascular quality, overwhelming evidence suggests that migraine is a dominantly inherited disorder characterized by varying degrees of recurrent vascular-quality headache, photophobia, sleep disruption, and depression.

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