OK, we know we harp on it. But dang it, the simple fact is this — if you eat more fruits and vegetables, you can head off illnesses that wreak havoc on your life. We’re talking about serious stuff — cancer and heart disease. It’s an old but true analogy : Like that car that sits in your driveway, your body needs regular maintenance — vitamins — to keep the motor going, to help you get more miles before you’re hauled off to the junkyard. In the June 19 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, two Harvard researchers give us the lowdown on which vitamins work — and which ones don’t — in the fight against heart disease and cancer.

The upshot: Eating right keeps you healthy and gives you the complex vitamins your body needs to fight off cellular changes that lead to cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis, according to Robert H. Fletcher, MD, MSc, and Kathleen M. Fairfield, MD, DrPH, both with Harvard Medical School. Virtually everyone in the general population is at risk, because we just don’t eat right, Fletcher and Fairfield say. But elderly people, vegans, and alcoholics are at even higher risk. Multivitamin supplements play an important role in shoring up this deficiency. “We recommend that all adults take one multivitamin daily,” writes Fletcher. “This practice is justified mainly by the known and suspected benefits of supplemental folate and vitamins B-12, B-6, and D in preventing [heart disease and stroke], cancer, and osteoporosis, and because multivitamins at that dose are safe and inexpensive.”

I am posting this as a favor to other migraine sufferers. I dont know if anyone else has had this experience or not. I would be curious to hear… I am 35 male computer consultants who is fits “classic migraine personality” (Type A personality, worries/stresses about everything, has too many things going on and cant seem to get off and relax…) Anyway, I have had severe migraines 2-3 times per week. I started going to the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago in November 97. (BTW, I highly recommend this place if you can get to it.)

I have tried Wygraine (didnt work for me), Midrin (worked on smaller headaches, but didnt work on “eye headaches” where pain is like someone punching you in the eye”) as medicines to take on the onset of pain. I used Imitrex which did work on most of the headaches, but my whole body ached the day after. It also didn’t seem to work on the most sever headaches. I now use Zomig (which I take in 5mg dosage if a big one is coming, even though normal dosage is 2.5mg).

As for daily medicines, I was also on Tenormin daily (prescribed by Family Doctor before Diamond clinic). Didnt work much. I tried Calan and it seemed to lessen the severity, but not the frequency. The drug that works so far the best for me as a preventative has been Depakote (1 at morn, 2 at night). Biggest drawback is that Depakote makes me very sleepy, but its better than the migraine. I write all this to show where I have been in the last few years in trying to treat migraines.

This fall, I decided that I could not afford to get sick, so I decided to get a really strong multivitamin in the vain hope that I would avoid getting sick. I began taking this “pack” of vitamins/minerals on October. About 3-4 weeks into taking the vitamins, I realized that I wasnt getting 2-3 headaches a week. I was getting about 1 per week. Nothing else in my life has changed that I can put my finger on. I realize this probably sounds like a bunch of crap, but I tell you all this because I was at a point I would try anything and this seems to be working for me.

I’ve been pretty impressed with what Dr. Andrew Weil has to say on the subject. I’m not sure whether I think it’s worth investing in the particular brand vitamins he recommends, but he offers a regimen specifically for lupus that looks sensible, especially after you’ve read up a bit on what those specific supplements do for you. As I recall, he does not recommend a multivitamin but specific vitamins, minerals and some herbal (and traditional) “tonics.” Weil actually pushes diet and lifestyle changes before vitamins.

I’ve started implementing just a few of his ideas and am noticing dramatic improvements in my facial skin and some changes in how my abdominal area feels, which is, well, more integrated, as though it’s one piece, not many. Wish it would make this constant low-level pelvic cramping go away. Maybe I haven’t made enough changes yet, and maybe traditional meds will have to address that. Last visit, the gyn said that the pain likely isn’t lymph nodes, because the hard areas don’t feel discrete — and she felt really carefully. So she guessed the endometriosis has upped the ante and I may be developing adhesion. What do adhesions feel like, and are there ways to treat them short of getting stronger meds than birth control pills?

Up to a few months ago, the BCPs were taking care of everything down there. Yes, iron overload can affect any organ – it literally “rusts” the organ. My brother had his liver damaged. My Mother ended up with congestive heart failure & diabetes. My father died of colon cancer as a result. That was in 1972 when the disease was not as widely know. I’ve tried to determine if Lupus and Hemachromatosis is linked. So far I’ve found nothing to support that. Only that they are both in the rheumatological category.