Migraine relief without drugs
Summary
Migraine is the leading cause of disability in adults under the age of 50.
Scientists recently discovered that narrowband LED green light reduces migraine headache pain without drugs, but they don't know how.
Research shows that exposure to green forest light relieves pain, soothes anxiety, improves mood, and may speed healing.
To emulate natural, green forest light for migraine phototherapy, the new MyGreen Lantern allows users to control multiple wavelengths and individual intensity controls to find the settings most soothing for them.
The burden of migraine headaches
Characterized by excruciating pain, visual aura, nausea, and extreme sensory sensitivity, migraine headaches render millions of sufferers around the world incapable of engaging in work, family life, special occasions, and routine social engagements.
We all know someone – whether a friend, family member, co-worker, or loved one -- plagued by migraine attacks. Many of us even suffer migraines ourselves. In fact, migraines are the leading cause of life-years lost to disability among working-age Americans (de Dhaem 2022).
And it's not just the physical pain that interferes with everyday lives. The psychological upheaval brought on by migraines is substantial, as chronic migraines give way to heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.
Patients who suffer chronic migraines are called migraineurs. For many, the psychological burden is compounded by the unpredictability of attacks, the constant fear of when a future episode will hit, and what plans, commitments, invitations, or obligations it will derail.
Compounding the incapacitation caused by migraine are the drowsiness, dizziness, and sometimes dangerous side effects of the medications prescribed to treat them. Most migraineurs prefer to use medications only as a last resort, and report that the relief provided by drugs is incomplete (Befus 2019). Nonetheless, drug overuse (and misuse) driven by desperation is common, as are adverse reactions to those drugs (Davies 2018).
The medical, psychological, financial, and social burdens of migraine headaches are oppressive, to say the least.
Migraine photosensitivity
One of the most characteristic and bothersome symptoms associated with migraine is acute photosensitivity -- i.e., increased pain resulting from exposure to light. Many migraineurs report that even glancing at a low wattage, shaded light source can cause an excruciating, stabbing pain behind the eyes. In the midst of an attack, they often retreat to dark, quiet rooms where they are all but held hostage to their sensory hypersensitivities under the threat of light aggravating their pain.
But in 2016, a team of researchers at Harvard University led by Professor Rami Burstein, made a remarkable discovery.
When they recruited dozens of migraineurs to their lab to test photosensitivity to different wavelengths of light during their headaches, they were surprised to find that one color of light was not only significantly less aggravating it actually alleviated migraine pain.
That color was green.
Therapeutically, filtering out all but green light may prove beneficial for the reduction of photophobia and potentially the headache intensity. - Noseda et al, 2016
A major shift in thinking about headache pain
The study protocol required extraordinary effort on the part of the participants. At the onset of an untreated migraine, they were required to find their way to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, MA and submit to testing in Burstein’s lab. After filling out a series of questionnaires, study participants were placed in a dimly lit room and asked to describe the baseline intensity, nature (throbbing, stabbing, etc.), and exact location of pain on the head. They were then asked to look directly at a series of five different color lights, each at five increasing intensities, with only brief breaks between. They were fitted with electrodes on the cornea, forehead, and ear to facilitate electroretinography – all while enduring the pain and sensitivities caused by their ongoing, excruciating headache.
The sophisticated electroretinography (ERG) techniques were coupled with visual evoked potential recordings to try decoding the mechanisms by which light impacted their migraine. Separate experiments to record nerve cell activity in the brains of rats were performed by the team in an attempt to identify pain signals sensitive to light. However, despite the electrode and animal data, the research team was unable to pinpoint how the green light works. They knew it did work, but they could only speculate about the mechanisms.
The researchers wrote, “taking into consideration results of ERG, thalamic and visual evoked potential recordings, the findings suggest that migraine photophobia may originate in the retina and be fine-tuned in the thalamus, rather than in the cortex—a major shift in current thinking. Mechanistically, the psychophysical findings are explained by the differential responses of cone-driven retinal pathways, light-sensitive thalamic neurons in two sensory nuclei outside the main visual pathway, and the cortex to the different colours.”
All they could really conclude is that:
Low intensity, narrowband green LED light can relieve the pain of migraine without use of drugs.
But … why?
The calming nature of green light
An increasing number of scientific studies describe what are known as “nature recovery theories” (Oh, 2020). In one great example dating back nearly 40 years, a scientist reviewed the medical records – including the length of stay, number of required re-admissions, and frequency of pain medications administered – of surgical patients in a Pennsylvania hospital over 9 years. He sorted the patients into two groups: 1) those who recovered in a room with a view of nature, including lush trees and shrubbery, and 2) a group with windows that faced a brick wall.
Patients with a view of trees endured fewer days of hospitalization and required less pain relief than those who had little more to gaze at than a brick wall.
This indicated to the researchers that merely a view of the natural environment could be beneficial to patients’ post-operative recovery (Ulrich, 1986). When pairing such nature recovery theories with findings like those from 2012, in which green light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) were found to significantly decrease the size of wounds in mice (Fushimi, 2012), it makes sense that exposure to a green light that mimics nature might relieve pain and promote the health and healing of humans.
Protocol problems
As incredible a breakthrough as it was, Burstein’s ground-breaking experimental 'green-light-for-headaches' protocol is difficult to translate into practice because it fails to address some of the most debilitating aspects of a migraine attack. First, the protocol requires the sufferer to block out all other wavelengths of light while looking at the green light source in order to achieve the desired effect. This requirement keeps the patient holed up in a dark room while they attempt to treat their pain with light, which is not only inconvenient, but often impractical. Second, the protocol requires subjects to look directly at the light source which, given the photophobic nature of migraines, can be in and of itself a barrier to treatment. Lastly, the green light tested in Burstein’s experiment, while effective, was restricted to a single, narrow-band wavelength and did not include the various adjacent green wavelengths typical of a natural forest environment.
The MyGreen solution
The MyGreen technology overcomes barriers to the Burstein treatment in a several ways:
The Lantern is equipped with two green wavelengths, 525nm and 545nm, with independent intensity adjustments to allow home users to experiment with the settings that are most soothing for their individual headache.
The light from the Lantern is powerful enough to facilitate two new use cases: 1) close, direct action through closed eyes, allowing use of the lamp in any indoor room that is otherwise softly lit, and 2) as an ambient light source for illuminating a work or living space with gentle green light that permits the migraineur to perform light chores or remain attentive to family, rather than retreat unproductively into darkness.
MyGreen technology permits migraineurs a wider array of green light wavelengths, more typical of a natural forest environment, and a more comfortable use case by acting with eyes closed. With the ability to adjust both the intensity of the light, and experiment with different wavelengths in different combinations, home users can now discover settings that are individually optimal for them.
So far, the feedback from prototype testers has been tremendous. A 26-year-old male in the throes of a migraine attack achieved nearly complete relief after less than three minutes of treatment by holding the lantern close to his closed eyes. A 65-year-old woman with a headache that persisted for several days while traveling used MyGreen in her hotel lobby and reached significantly improved her comfort level in less than five minutes.
Finally, a 43-year-old mother with three teenage daughters experienced success treating her headache with the MyGreen Lantern. When her oldest daughter experienced a headache, she successfully treated her pain with the Lantern, too. The only problem this mother has now is that when two daughters are experiencing headaches at the same time, they argue about how to share the one Lantern.
Given the debilitating nature of migraines, that seems like a desirable trade-off.
About the Author
Thomas P Seager, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University. He is the founder of MyGreen Lamp, LLC and principal inventor of MyGreen products. He previously was CEO of the Morozko Forge, LLC ice bath company where he is Chief Science Officer.
References
Befus DR, Hull S, Strand de Oliveira J, Schmidler GS, Weinberger M, Coeytaux RR. Nonpharmacological self-management of migraine across social locations: an equity-oriented, qualitative analysis. Global Advances in Health and Medicine. 2019 Jun;8:2164956119858034.
Davies PT, Lane RJ, Astbury T, Fontebasso M, Murphy J, Matharu M. The long and winding road: the journey taken by headache sufferers in search of help. Primary health care research & development. 2019;20:e4.
de Dhaem OB, Sakai F. Migraine in the workplace. Eneurologicalsci. 2022 Jun 1;27:100408.
Fushimi T, Inui S, Nakajima T, Ogasawara M, Hosokawa K, Itami S. Green light emitting diodes accelerate wound healing: characterization of the effect and its molecular basis in vitro and in vivo. Wound Repair and Regeneration. 2012 Mar;20(2):226-35.
Noseda R, Bernstein CA, Nir RR, Lee AJ, Fulton AB, Bertisch SM, Hovaguimian A, Cestari DM, Saavedra-Walker R, Borsook D, Doran BL. Migraine photophobia originating in cone-driven retinal pathways. Brain. 2016 Jul 1;139(7):1971-86.
Oh KH, Shin WS, Khil TG, Kim DJ. Six-step model of nature-based therapy process. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2020 Feb;17(3):685.
Ulrich RS. Human responses to vegetation and landscapes. Landscape and urban planning. 1986 Jan 1;13:29-44.
Comments