disclaimer: results may vary
When people begin the Resolution Magic Programme for migraine, it is hard to grasp the concept that the exercises don’t send the symptoms away immediately. No matter how much you tell yourself that you understand this, it isn’t logical. You want to take a pill and feel the pain going away, very soon afterwards.
Because the programme is re-training your brain, it takes time to change your symptoms. Even when you can see on your chart that your migraine attacks are less frequent, less intense, and don’t last as long, you still won’t have the satisfaction of feeling a migraine recede just after you have done a Resolution Magic mental exercise.
So often, once underway, the symptoms sneak out of the door while you are doing something else, ten minutes after your exercise has ended, and you don’t notice it go.
But then, one day, you do feel the change happen. it is a wonderfully rewarding moment. You have just finished your session, and you are just about to get on with something else, and woosh! You feel it ‘lift’. It feels fantastic, and you know it was your own efforts that are now working so much more quickly.
Here’s Carol’s story:
Carol telephoned me in a panic, “I can’t understand it, I have been doing it and it’s not working.”
Carol had just begun the programme ten days earlier, and this was her second migraine attack. I reassured Carol that she should just keep on repeating the mental exercise every hour, as far as possible, and I made an appointment to go and see her a few days later, as she lived near-by.
The next day, Carol telephoned to say that the second migraine had lasted all day and had finally lifted just before she had gone to bed.
I was so relieved. Two days later, Carol met me at the door, and led me into the lounge. Comfortably seated on her large settee, Carol explained that she was feeling fine, but there had been a really sharp pain around one eye the previous day. It had lasted about two hours.
As we studied Carol’s chart, the points on the graph showed her regular weekly migraines, lasting about 16-24 hours over the weeks before she began the programme.
After she had begun the programme, Carol’s first migraine attack had lasted 16 hours, the same as usual. Even though Carol knew that her first migraine would probably not be any different from any other, she had panicked when there seemed to be no difference at all, and she had telephoned me.
Looking at the chart, I saw that the second migraine lasted 11 hours, somewhat shorter than her typical migraine attack. I pointed it out to her. She was encouraged.
I asked Carol to tell me more about the pain behind her eye the previous day. It was a searing pain, and Carol had put in a couple of active sessions in case it was the beginning of a migraine.
I told Carol that I suspected that the pain around her eye might indeed have been a ‘mini-migraine’. Carol was incredulous. With a little luck, her migraine might have reduced to that level already, but only time would tell.
Sure enough, that was the last time Carol ever had a migraine. Over the next few months, ordinary headaches appeared, reducing as time went by.