Feet in Hot Water for Headache: Exploring This Natural Remedy

Clearly, counting on medical recommendation from TikTok isn’t really useful (particularly if it’s not coming from a physician or different well being care supplier). Nonetheless, some home remedies for migraine truly assist (extra on this later). And whereas some folks flip to conventional migraine therapies like drugs, others would possibly want to have choices—which is why we have additionally written about ice water for migraines, meditations for headaches, and eyebrow massage for head pain.

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 seek out out.

Does dipping your ft in sizzling 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 sizzling baths to assist with migraine,” says Noah Rosen, MD, a neurologist at Northwell Well being. That mentioned, there’s “little proof to help it,” Dr. Rosen provides.

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

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That’s as a result of it’s primarily based on older theories about migraines, which hypothesized that modifications in blood stream to the mind precipitated migraines. Whereas blood vessels do contract and increase considerably throughout an assault, it isn’t the trigger, says Anna Pace, 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 mentioned, 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 sizzling (or chilly) temperatures stimulate nerve cells, particularly peripheral ache and lightweight contact receptors. They might modify ache alerts in some way, “having a secondary impact on the central nervous system,” he says. The impact could also be just like “peripheral electrical stimulating units” that assist cease and prevent migraines.

Although we nonetheless don’t know why hydrotherapy helps migraine, some preliminary analysis appears to recommend that it does. “Practically 10 years in the past, there was a small research of hydrotherapy the place individuals had ft and arms in sizzling 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 Practice, 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 remedy used within the research was fairly rigorous: a far more “intensive expertise then merely dipping ft in sizzling water,” Dr. Rosen says. Plus, it concerned a mixture of sizzling and chilly therapies, not simply sizzling water soaks on their very own. All this to say, chances are you’ll not have the identical success for those who simply dip your ft in a heat tub (however hey, there’s additionally no hurt in attempting).

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

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

That mentioned, some teams could wish 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 contains folks with coronary heart issues. That’s as a result of sudden or extended immersion in sizzling water can spike your physique temperature, overheat your physique, and tax your coronary heart, in line with the Cleveland Clinic. This will create a domino impact, resulting in a harmful rise (or dip) in blood stress, irregular coronary heart rhythms, or, in extreme instances, even coronary heart assault.

“Anybody with a coronary heart situation ought to think about clearance from their doctor” earlier than attempting this, Dr. Rosen says. In case your physician provides you the “okay,” strive it out. Simply keep hydrated (maintain 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 precipitated numbness in your ft, chances are you’ll not be capable of precisely really feel how sizzling the water is, placing you at greater threat for burns.

Does soaking your ft in chilly water for migraine assist?

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

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

Living proof: A July 2013 research within the Hawaii Journal of Medicine and Public Health² discovered that making use of a frozen neck wrap on the onset of a migraine headache considerably decreased head ache.

That mentioned, there’s nonetheless “no validated information 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 at all times nice to have choices for migraine reduction, sizzling foot soaks could also be hit and miss for migraine assaults. That mentioned, you would possibly want therapies which have a confirmed observe report. 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.

Take into accout: “What may fit for one individual could not work for one more,” she says. And infrequently it’s not one strategy, however a mixture of issues that assist. Because of this, it’s necessary to at all times “talk about all choices together with your physician to seek out the one that’s best for you,” Dr. Tempo says.

From house treatments to remedy and migraine-specific units, these migraine therapies are tried-and-true, per the Cleveland Clinic and Drs. Tempo and Rosen:

• Over-the-counter, pain-relieving medicines like ibuprofen, aspirin, acetaminophen, naproxen, and caffeine are efficient when you have gentle to average migraine signs
• Medicines to cease migraines can cease or cut back migraine signs like ache, nausea, gentle sensitivity, and so on.
• Preventive migraine medicines cut back how typically and the way extreme migraines have an effect on you, although you’ll have to take them each day
• Medical units 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 units may also help numb and boring head ache
• Sure nutritional vitamins and dietary supplements like magnesium, riboflavin, coenzyme Q-10, and butterbur could assist forestall migraine assaults
• Biofeedback helps you develop an consciousness of stress in your physique, so you’ll be able to cut back it and stop, lower, or cease a migraine headache
• Leisure methods like yoga may also help ease stress and stress, which can contribute to migraines
• Acupuncture could assist activate pathways within the mind that may “change off” ache
• Topical peppermint oil or lavender could cut back migraine depth, frequency, and signs like gentle sensitivity, nausea, and vomiting
• Botulinum toxin sort A injections, AKA Botox, interrupts the ache pathway between the mind and nerves within the spinal twine

When to see a physician

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

If in case you have any of the next signs, it’s finest 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’re feeling too crappy to go to highschool 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 modifications, or gentle sensitivity

Along with taking a historical past of your signs, your supplier can also advocate bloodwork or imaging. These checks will assist them get a fuller image of your drawback. “It’s at all times good to know what you might be coping with, and find out how to deal with it optimally,” Dr. Rosen says.

The underside line

“Sadly, there’s no scientific information to recommend that dipping your ft in sizzling 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 sizzling foot soak is unlikely to cease a migraine assault, per the medical doctors, it is perhaps one other great tool in your migraine toolbox. Once more, for most individuals, managing migraine takes a mixture of techniques. So long as you have got medical clearance out of your supplier, and also you observe a couple of security precautions, there’s little hurt in giving hydrotherapy a go.