Toes in Scorching Water for Headache: Exploring This Pure Treatment

Clearly, counting on medical recommendation from TikTok isn’t advisable (particularly if it’s not coming from a physician or different well being care supplier). Nonetheless, some residence treatments for migraine truly assist (extra on this later). And whereas some folks flip to conventional migraine therapies like medication, others may favor to have choices—which is why we have additionally written about ice water for migraines, meditations for complications, and eyebrow therapeutic massage for head ache.

So earlier than you low cost the feet-in-heat hack, we requested the consultants if there’s any science to again it up. Learn on to search out out.

Does dipping your ft in scorching water assist with migraines?

Hydrotherapy (i.e., utilizing heat or chilly water to deal with well being situations) has been round for eons. “There’s a lengthy historical past of utilizing ice or scorching baths to assist with migraine,” says Noah Rosen, MD, a neurologist at Northwell Well being. That stated, there’s “little proof to help it,” Dr. Rosen provides.

The frequent perception, particularly on social media, is that heat water diverts blood movement to the ft (i.e., away from the top), and this helps to alleviate head ache. However Dr. Rosen says this rationalization is inaccurate: “The concept that warming the ft attracts blood away from the mind shouldn’t be appropriate.”

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That’s as a result of it’s based mostly on older theories about migraines, which hypothesized that adjustments in blood movement to the mind brought about migraines. Whereas blood vessels do contract and broaden considerably throughout an assault, it’s not the trigger, says Anna Tempo, MD, neurologist and assistant professor on the Icahn College of Drugs at Mount Sinai. The primary drivers of migraine assaults are electrical activation within the mind and neuroinflammation, she says.

That stated, how heat water helps migraines continues to be “unknown and unclear,” Dr. Rosen says. He theorizes that it might have one thing to do with the best way scorching (or chilly) temperatures stimulate nerve cells, particularly peripheral ache and light-weight contact receptors. They might modify ache alerts one way or the other, “having a secondary impact on the central nervous system,” he says. The impact could also be much like “peripheral electrical stimulating gadgets” that assist cease and forestall migraines.

Although we nonetheless don’t know why hydrotherapy helps migraine, some preliminary analysis appears to counsel that it does. “Almost 10 years in the past, there was a small research of hydrotherapy the place contributors had ft and arms in scorching water (after which an ice therapeutic massage of the top) for 45 days,” Dr. Rosen says. He’s referring to a 2016 research within the Journal of Neurosciences in Rural Follow, which discovered that hydrotherapy decreased the frequency and depth of complications in folks with migraine.

Although promising, take the outcomes with a little bit of warning. The therapy used within the research was fairly rigorous: a far more “intensive expertise then merely dipping ft in scorching water,” Dr. Rosen says. Plus, it concerned a mix of scorching and chilly therapies, not simply scorching water soaks on their very own. All this to say, chances are you’ll not have the identical success in case you simply dip your ft in a heat tub (however hey, there’s additionally no hurt in making an attempt).

How lengthy to soak your ft in scorching water for a headache

So long as you’re taking a couple of precautions, a scorching foot soak is usually secure for most individuals. “The [main] concern about that is utilizing too scorching water the place it may possibly trigger burns,” Dr. Tempo says. (As if head ache wasn’t unhealthy sufficient, you definitely don’t need to add singed pores and skin to your listing of issues.) You’ll be able to keep away from burns by ensuring the water temperature isn’t too excessive and capping your soak to twenty minutes, Dr. Rosen says.

That stated, some teams might need to skip the foot soak altogether. “People who find themselves aged or who produce other well being situations (who could also be extra weak to overheating or dehydration) could also be in danger for extra regarding unwanted side effects,” Dr. Tempo says.

This consists of folks with coronary heart issues. That’s as a result of sudden or extended immersion in scorching water can spike your physique temperature, overheat your physique, and tax your coronary heart, in keeping with the Cleveland Clinic. This could create a domino impact, resulting in a harmful rise (or dip) in blood stress, irregular coronary heart rhythms, or, in extreme circumstances, even coronary heart assault.

“Anybody with a coronary heart situation ought to think about clearance from their doctor” earlier than making an attempt this, Dr. Rosen says. In case your physician offers you the “okay,” attempt it out. Simply keep hydrated (preserve a bottle of cool water inside attain) and be careful for signs like dizziness, emotions of faintness, or nausea.

Similar goes for anybody with neuropathy (nerve harm) within the ft. If neuropathy has brought about numbness in your ft, chances are you’ll not be capable to precisely really feel how scorching the water is, placing you at increased danger for burns.

Does soaking your ft in chilly water for migraine assist?

Chilly remedy has lengthy been a typical residence treatment for migraine. It is sensible: Ice packs have a numbing impact, to allow them to assist alleviate head ache.

In comparison with scorching foot soaks, scientists have additionally accomplished extra research on chilly remedy for migraines. “There is a little more knowledge for ice packs or ice caps in serving to to alleviate ache and scale back irritation when used on the top” or neck, Dr. Tempo says.

Working example: A July 2013 research within the Hawaii Journal of Drugs and Public Well being² discovered that making use of a frozen neck wrap on the onset of a migraine headache considerably decreased head ache.

That stated, there’s nonetheless “no validated knowledge on ice baths or soaking ft in chilly water to deal with migraine,” Dr. Tempo says. So if you wish to go the chilly remedy route, you’re higher off sticking to the science-backed methods and placing an ice pack in your head or neck.

Different therapies for migraines

Whereas it’s all the time nice to have choices for migraine aid, scorching foot soaks could also be hit and miss for migraine assaults. That stated, you may favor therapies which have a confirmed monitor document. Fortunately, “there are myriad medical therapies and different nonpharmacologic therapies for migraine which have been proven to be useful for stopping and stopping migraine assaults,” Dr. Tempo says.

Consider: “What may go for one particular person might not work for one more,” she says. And sometimes it’s not one strategy, however a mix of issues that assist. Because of this, it’s essential to all the time “talk about all choices together with your physician to search out the one that’s best for you,” Dr. Tempo says.

From residence treatments to treatment and migraine-specific gadgets, these migraine therapies are tried-and-true, per the Cleveland Clinic and Drs. Tempo and Rosen:

• Over-the-counter, pain-relieving drugs like ibuprofen, aspirin, acetaminophen, naproxen, and caffeine are efficient you probably have gentle to average migraine signs
• Medicines to cease migraines can cease or scale back migraine signs like ache, nausea, mild sensitivity, and so on.
• Preventive migraine drugs scale back how usually and the way extreme migraines have an effect on you, although you could have to take them every day
• Medical gadgets like Nerivio, Cefaly, and Relivion, vagal nerve stimulators, and transcranial magnetic stimulators use electrical pulses/stimulation or magnetic fields to assist forestall migraine
• Constant sleep—lack of sleep is a identified migraine set off
• Ice packs, ice hats, or different cooling gadgets may help numb and boring head ache
• Sure nutritional vitamins and dietary supplements like magnesium, riboflavin, coenzyme Q-10, and butterbur might assist forestall migraine assaults
• Biofeedback helps you develop an consciousness of rigidity in your physique, so you may scale back it and stop, lower, or cease a migraine headache
• Leisure methods like yoga may help ease rigidity and stress, which can contribute to migraines
• Acupuncture might assist activate pathways within the mind that may “change off” ache
• Topical peppermint oil or lavender might scale back migraine depth, frequency, and signs like mild sensitivity, nausea, and vomiting
• Botulinum toxin kind A injections, AKA Botox, interrupts the ache pathway between the mind and nerves within the spinal wire

When to see a physician

In relation to migraines, generally DIY approaches merely don’t lower it. In spite of everything, migraines aren’t simply peculiar complications—they will trigger debilitating head ache that may sideline you for hours (and even days).

When you’ve got any of the next signs, it’s greatest to let your physician know, per Drs. Tempo and Rosen:

• When headache/migraine interferes together with your day by day life or routine (say, you are feeling too crappy to go to high school or work)
• In case your headache/migraine doesn’t reply to over-the-counter therapies
• In case your headache/migraine comes with different signs like nausea, imaginative and prescient adjustments, or mild sensitivity

Along with taking a historical past of your signs, your supplier might also advocate bloodwork or imaging. These checks will assist them get a fuller image of your downside. “It’s all the time good to know what you might be coping with, and easy methods to deal with it optimally,” Dr. Rosen says.

The underside line

“Sadly, there’s no scientific knowledge to counsel that dipping your ft in scorching water will assist remedy migraines,” Dr. Tempo says. Nonetheless, she acknowledges that “some folks do discover enchancment in discomfort with warmth (or ice) remedy.”

On the finish of the day, “consider warmth therapies as extra consolation measures,” Dr. Tempo says. “They might make a affected person really feel rather less uncomfortable and maybe extra calm.”

So whereas a scorching foot soak is unlikely to cease a migraine assault, per the docs, it could be one other useful gizmo in your migraine toolbox. Once more, for most individuals, managing migraine takes a mix of ways. So long as you have got medical clearance out of your supplier, and also you comply with a couple of security precautions, there’s little hurt in giving hydrotherapy a go.