5 Reasons You May Need to Find a New Migraine Doctor

Migraines can be debilitating, leaving you in pain and unable to function daily. If you're suffering from chronic migraines, you must find the proper treatment to stop your migraines before they have lasting effects on your life. 

If it's been more than two years and you're still not seeing much improvement in your condition, it may be time to find a new doctor who can give you the kind of treatment that works best for you and your migraines. 

However, finding the right migraine doctor to treat your condition can be challenging and time-consuming, especially if you don't know where to look or what questions to ask. 

This article will help you find the best migraine doctor so you can reduce the number of migraines you experience and regain control of your life.

Here are some signs that it's time to move on and find a new migraine doctor:

 

1. You’ve tried various medications but nothing seem to work. 

If you’ve tried countless of medications already but you only get little to no results, then this is the right time for you to consider alternative treatments for your migraine. 

Despite the hype surrounding medications, they rarely provide a long-term solution to regain your health. We end up seeing so many patients who have tried so many different medications with varying degrees of success. Sometimes the side effects can be worse than the migraine symptoms with weight gain, memory issues, dizziness, and nausea.

Unfortunately, people with migraine are rarely offered any other alternatives. This is a shame because all the research points to people being able to control their migraines and prevent their migraine from starting in the first place. 

 

2. Your doctor is losing hope of your migraine treatment.

For some migraine sufferers, medical treatment is enough to get through their migraines with little pain and almost no side effects. But for others, even a combination of preventative treatments isn't enough. If your doctor can't offer you any new hope or help with medication side effects, it may be time to find someone who can. 

Don't give up! 

We know so much more about the underlying causes of migraine today.  There is a lot that you can do to relieve migraine symptoms and prevent future attacks; however, this can't be done using medication alone. 

Medication certainly has its place in the initial stages to help relieve symptoms. However, you have to understand what the underlying causes of migraine are in your particular case to prevent future attacks from occurring.

 

3. They dismiss your symptoms or fail to connect the dots between your various symptoms.  

Symptoms such as brain fog, memory issues, being tired, having anxiety or depression, having achy muscles and joints, neck pain, and back pain can all be signs and symptoms of a central underlying cause.

If your doctor brushes off your concerns about symptoms, even if you think they might be minor, it can be frustrating. For example, many migraine sufferers have told me their doctors ignored symptoms of vomiting or nausea that are classic triggers for migraines. 

Another common complaint is that doctors failed to test for conditions that are known migraine causes—for example, by testing blood glucose levels in people with diabetes or iron levels in those who have anemia. 

When possible, ask your physician to tell you what they think might be causing or at least contributing to your migraines.   A good migraine doctor will understand the potential lifestyle and environmental factors that can combine to contribute to your migraine risk.  

The science strongly supports the role of the patient having a thorough understanding of migraine and what they can do themselves to help limit d progression of migraine.   Migraine is a chronic and complex disorder involving multiple regions in the body.  You must be able to learn as much as you can so you can take control of your health.

If your doctor cannot answer your questions or dismiss your symptoms by saying it's just stress or genetic, and you'll have to learn with it, it's time to find another doctor.  

It's also OK to get a second opinion if you think another migraine expert would take your concerns more seriously or has more experience helping people with migraine find relief without relying on medication.

 

4. Your first appointment isn’t that comprehensive.

If your appointment is just 10-15 minutes long, that's usually a bad sign. 

An initial appointment that's so short wouldn't allow you time to discuss any new symptoms, changes to your treatment plan, or for them to pick up on cues that you might be forgetting to tell them.

When you feel rushed, it's easy to forget everything you want to ask or say. If it feels like they don't have time for you, they probably don't. It's OK to move on if you aren't getting what you need from them.

Ideally, your doctor should perform a full exam at your first appointment, and you and your physician should go over your symptoms in detail.

The standard initial consultation for a migraine patient should include a comprehensive assessment of the current symptoms and how things have changed over time. Since so many cases start in childhood or adolescence, tracking a patient's health history to youth is essential.  You can often see trends in the timeline that give you a good idea of its cause. 

It's also imperative to assess all the different systems in the body, not just the neurological system.

The body is complex, and all the different systems in your body are intimately connected.  The gut's nervous system and the brain, for example, are derived from the same embryonic cells and are in 24/7 communication with each other.  So many migraine sufferers have gut symptoms that are ignored because doctors think it is a different issue from migraine. However, it is often part of the same disease process.  And you can find out easily by taking the time to explore the patient's overall health.

The same applies to your hormone health, nutritional deficiencies, immune system, the sympathetic nervous system, your neck and even down to the food that you eat is so important.  If this has not been done, then they may be missing significant contributors to your migraine.

 

5. They say there's nothing more you can do.

People with migraines are often told they've tried every treatment, that nothing else is left. This isn't always true. 

Just because your doctor says you've tried everything doesn't mean you have to accept it.

There may be new tools on the horizon, so try to avoid concluding that nothing more can be done.  It is just that they are out of ideas from their medical paradigm.  

For a long time, doctors have relied on prescription medication to control migraine symptoms. However, research has shown us that medication is not always the best solution to your migraines.  Even the medications that may work well initially stop working because they do not address the underlying cause.  Even the most recent migraine medication that has recently been passed on the PBS failed to live up to the harp and only have about a 25% success rate. 

Don't give up on getting the care you deserve.

If you're dealing with migraines, you should be getting the right treatment for yourself and your migraines. 

All doctors have to know a lot about many different diseases. Sometimes, despite their best efforts, helping people find migraine relief can be challenging.  Especially when medications don't work or when patients would like an alternative treatment.  

So it's good to know that there are other options out there that can be more effective in preventing migraine episodes.  

If you would like to know more about what might be causing your migraines and what to do about them, you can book your initial assessment here.