Q. I have suffered from tension headaches for many years. The pursuit for a cure included many trials of medications, acupuncture, physical therapy, chiropractic, Botox injections, epidural steroids and other spinal injections. Nothing helped. I continued to average over eight headaches a week.
In January, a friend mentioned that she had gotten some relief from her migraines with large doses of vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and wondered if they might help with my headaches as well. I looked it up and found B2 had no side effects or drug interactions, so I decided to try it. My expectations were not high.
I took my first dose (400 mg) on January 14. I went the next ten days without a headache. Fifteen weeks have now passed, and I have had a total of only 14 headaches! At my previous average of 8.4 per week, I would have had 117 headaches during this period. For me, a miracle!
I hope others may benefit from this simple and inexpensive approach.
A. Thank you for sharing your success story. Riboflavin has been used to prevent chronic migraine headaches (Neurology, April 24, 2012). It is good to hear that this B vitamin might also help against recurrent tension headaches. We are sending you our Guide to Headaches & Migraines with information on medications as well as nondrug approaches to treating this painful condition.
