Hi everyone, Christina here!
I thought I’d share with you guys something that has been a real issue, and I’m sure you may have encountered this too, or know someone who has at least once.
Travis gets frequent headaches and although his Neurologist believes in many holistic treatments (I’ll get into that later), Travis does require some prescription meds to help those headaches that prevent him from even getting out of bed on some days.
This tiny little medication costs upwards of $600 PER dose. Our insurance does not cover this (and we have really good insurance so I’d be hard pressed to find someone else whose insurance does cover it) and there are not ANY coupons out there (I’m a coupon Queen). None of those free little discount script cards help, either. So, Travis relies heavily on the free samples his doctor gives him when he sees the pain management Doctor which is about every other month. These packets sit on our shelves, tucked away. Because we have so few of the packets and never know when or if he will get more free samples, he uses them sparingly and we are forced to use other methods to get rid of headaches.
We use essential oils, I have about 25 I use for varying things from sleep, relaxing, sinus, muscle tension, headaches, germs, etc. I feel like there are 2 camps of essential oils people: The No and the Hell Yes. We are somewhere in the middle, sometimes we are in love with them and sometimes they do nothing. Same thing with the salt lamp… still figuring it out.
We also supplement with True Calm, Turmeric, Black Strap Molasses, L-Theanine, 5-HTP, and a few others. All of those you can research using google scholar and look for peer reviewed medical journals that have done studies on those ingredients. I know modern medicine does its best, but there are gaps in it and sometimes filling those gaps involves going back to what people used for thousands of years before a pill, successfully.
The ad shows the same L-Theanine supplements the Neurologist gave him. Comes with 60 Tablets. Take some in the morning with caffeine to help your focus and mood, and more before bed to help you sleep.
If you’re struggling with getting a prescription due to costs, think outside the box. I’m not a medical doctor but I am someone that has the skills to do research and look at medical journals, and you probably do too. I know this can be a very controversial topic and I do not want to debate because what works in our house may not work in yours and everyone is unique, however, I wanted to shed insight on how we have worked around roadblocks.
If you happen to have anything that you’ve found to work for you, please feel free to share.
Have a great week, everyone!
P.S. We are currently using the Plant Therapy Essential Oil: Let it Go in our diffuser as seen in the Amazon Ad below, and we both love it. Smells amazing and calms us both! A great one to have on as you blog or need to relax!
Travis and the Brain 
Yup, it’s all about finding whatever works. I like peppermint oil for headaches – doesn’t always work, but at least it doesn’t hurt anything.
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Exactly. We love the peppermint. It often doesn’t help him, but we enjoy the smell. Glad you found something that helps, part of the time! -Christina
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I have a salt lamp too and I have yet to figure out if anything is different. Since I have to ask, it probably isn’t. It’s pretty though!
My first real therapist (I don’t ever consider my actual first counselor as a therapist, he was unhelpful) always suggested supplements along with my meds. It helped when I was consistent. But I agree, they help.
Also, what is up with insurance companies? Once they decided that one of my depression meds wasn’t going to be covered by insurance and sent me a “helpful” list of other medications I could take. Most meds on the list I had taken and had poor reactions to.
$600 a pill? Ridiculous!
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Hi, we so agree with you, insurance companies can be really ridiculous! I agree that the salt lamps are super pretty. My cousin works as an Asst. Attorney General and says a lot of the attorneys use them in their offices to help with stress, we’ll keep using it and trying it out! There’s other studies that say dark light can really help depressive symptoms, perhaps that’s worth a research look rather than the salt lamp.
Thanks for your reply 🙂
Christina
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I read that raw charcoal in a dish also sends out negative ions (or whatever the right ions are) to help with seasonal depression. I’m still trying to find where I can get raw charcoal (I’m assuming they don’t mean charcoal brickettes lol). Amazon turns up a lot of charcoal cleaning solutions.
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Ohhh, I will have to check that out! In our basement we have two of those Ion Pro machines but we haven’t used them in ages and are kind of a pain because you have to clean the panels a lot (with 2 huskies, that’s a lot!) but the Charcoal sounds like a good thing to look into.
If I find it, and try it- I’ll do a review. Thanks for the pro-tip!
-Christina
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Oh please let me know!
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I am fortunate enough that I don’t have a lot of headaches with my tbi, I do have what I call brain aches and those are different, more like a sensation going through my brain or neuropathways than an actual headache (they are not fun either causing confusion and dizziness).
But I am a holistic person and a yogini so I use other methods to treat myself in most things. I use essential oils every day for my general health and then for ailments. Peppermint is definitely used a lot for anti-inflammatory on my hip/back issues, for stomach aches and around my neck to give me energy. Its not recommended for times of sleep though due to its properties.
For other things, I meditate, breathing exercises, do yoga. I definitely do breath work and meditation practices with a headache. I also use trigger point therapy on myself. The main book I use for that is “The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook” by Clair Davies & Amber Davies. For headache I use a tennis ball that I lie on the floor on top of and roll it along the inner shoulder blade and up to my shoulder neck area, finding any tender areas and working out those spots. (I did this pre-accident tbi for headaches and I reduced my frequency of stress headaches I used to have). Key for this is not to roll tennis ball on the spine only next to it. The tennis ball is my go to headache first line of action that my chiropractor taught me 10 years ago.
I have to work very hard on things with my eyes. I have to sleep with an eye mask so it is complete darkness. I rest my eyes sometimes during the day or before bed with the eye mask on with my eyes open. I sustained injury to my neuro-vision connection and have therapy prism glasses special trying to work on many of my eye issues. The strain in my eyes can cause headaches so I have to make the connection and work on the eyes with the head. I also have to be very conscious of not pushing myself too far in anything, all that does is cause symptoms that include headaches.
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Hi, thanks for the reply and sharing all your wisdom. I have heard of trigger therapy before but have yet to research it and attempt to implement it. Trav is willing to try anything that could possibly help him relieve some of his ailments. I do have peppermint on hand, we will have to give that a go. I think the one we have now is a blend including wintergreen that gives off a good aroma. Light sensitivity is also a big deal because we are indoors a lot, trying to change that up. We both really love Ludovico Einaudi for meditation music or just to relax and listen to something tranquil, his Islands album is so dreamy, you can find him on Spotify if that’s what you use to listen to music.
Thanks for your insight, I’ll look into it 🙂
-Christina
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Unfortunately I feel like Insurance is turning the medical field into a big business. We need to be taken care of, but you need to have the right insurance and you can only see this particular doctor and if you don’t have the right insurance you can’t get a test or the right medication. It’s so frustrating.
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Yeah the system is flawed. We are still in a battle with the insurance company from the person who hit Travis, and our own auto insurance company not wanting to pay up. Something needs to change. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Thank you for reading! – Christina.
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Sorry about the expense of your headache meds; no fun. I was going to suggest oil of lavender, which is supposed to be calming. Also, meditation, bio-feedback type practises, even for a few minutes each day, might help stop the headaches from starting in the first place. Same with gentle yoga, posture improvement type exercises, and not to forget, drink plenty of fresh, clean water and get outside each day for a good dose of fresh air. Less sugar and other inflammatory foods may help your symptoms as well. Enough sleep, a warm bath, gentle massage, herbal teas, basically pampering yourself certainly can’t hurt. I see a few other people have made similar suggestions, so it seems to me that many people must find these alternative, and inexpensive, if not free, solutions helpful. I hope that you find some that will help you too. I really enjoyed this post, as well as the others I have read so far.
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Hello there, thanks for taking the time to post a wealth of suggestions! We are on the road to implementing most of those at home and the ones like bio-feedbacking are done in a clinic. A few more weeks and the first round of them will be done- whoo! So much of this is a complete lifestyle change, for both of us since it helps when one can hold the other accountable 😉
Thanks for stopping by, I’ll check out your blog soon.
-Christina
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