Migraine Headaches by Anonymous

I'm a 21-year-old student in social work from The Netherlands. I've now had migraines for two years. They come about once a week and I experience "flashes", which make my head spin and sometimes make me faint.

When I told my general practitioner about it, he told me to go to a physiotherapist so I could learn to relax the muscles in my shoulders and neck, because he thought that the tension in those muscles caused the headache.  He refused to prescribe any painkillers, other than aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen. But I tried those a great many times and they didn't even soften the headaches.

When I told my boyfriend about this at the beginning of our relationship, he spoke about it with his father, and his father (who smokes marihuana on daily basis, just to relax) suggested I could try smoking cannabis. At first I was scared it would get me addicted (my parents were quite clear on that subject-- they don’t even approve my using it as a painkiller), but once I tried it, the migraine ceased immediately and it made me really sleepy. Usually, when I had a migraine, I couldn't even try to lie down, because the headaches only got worse and there was no way I would ever get some sleep. This time I just had to lie down and I fell sound asleep immediately. This drug really seems to work the best for me.