Our Approach To Migraines

We combine the latest research-backed neurological examinations and advanced neurological testing for patients with migraine headaches.

It is a given… you are getting migraines headaches. Maybe they aren’t that frequent, but they are disabling. Maybe they are happening more and more often and they are intruding on your ability to function at home and or work.

Either way, our job is twofold:

We must figure out WHY you are getting these migraines
Based on the cause, we have to develop a treatment plan based on the 4 Pillars.

Most docs are not looking beyond an MRI for the cause. If you don’t have a tumor, you start on the medication cycle to reduce the pain. It is difficult if not impossible to put out a fire by throwing buckets of water on it when someone on the other side is throwing gasoline on it!

Step 1: Evaluation/Examination

By the time they get to me, most patients have had an MRI of their brain. We know that there is not usually a structural cause of the pain. What we need to do is functional testing.

Since migraines are a problem with the Trigeminovascular system in the brainstem, we need to find out why that area is dysfunctional.

The examination will include a complete physical exam and extensive functional neurological exam. Eye movements as well as balance systems are also located in the same region in the brainstem, so evaluating these gives us amazing insight into migraines.

I have yet to see a migraine patient that had normal eye movements!

If you have never had these tests, there is no way to identify where the neurological issues are coming from…

We also do extensive blood, urine and stool testing to identify metabolic and nutritional factors. Then we do a careful assessment of your neck and jaw to isolate any structural involvement.

This level of testing is the only way to figure out the best treatment program as every patient with migraine is different.

Step 2: Treatment Plan

Because there are different causative factors, our approach is slightly different for every patient. For people outside the NY Tristate area, we do a weeklong intensive program where they get labs done prior to them coming to NY. When they arrive, they get a complete examination and all neuro testing. Then they come into the office 3x/day for 5 days for treatments.

People who live locally may come multiple times per week for up to 12 weeks or as long as it takes to fix the underlying issues. This is much like exercising; you can’t get into shape and change your body in a week. It takes time. Changing your brain so it doesn’t continue to get worse takes time.

You may also be given a detox program, elimination diet, nutritional supplements, stress management strategies and Mindset coaching to help you beat these brain attacks.

It takes time and work on both of our parts, but results have been life changing for our patients.

Can you imagine a life without migraines?

Latency: This is the reaction time taken for the saccade to fire or activate after a new stimulus or target is presented. A normal reaction time should be less than 200ms. People who have had a concussion or suffer from neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease have pathologically long saccadic latency times that are greater than 200ms.
Velocity: The speed of a saccade is highly related to health of areas in the brain stem commonly affected in neurological disorders.
Accuracy: The ability to make the eyes stop and land directly on the target they are saccading to or looking toward is essential to a person functioning in their environment accurately. If the saccade overshoots or undershoots the target it may indicate that the cerebellum or the area of the brain that makes the environmental grid may have been affected by injury or neurological disorders. The saccadometer computerized graph shows leftward saccades that are generated by the right brain hemisphere as red and the rightward saccades that are generated by the left brain as green. This can be very useful in determining what side of the brain is most affected.

Huntington	Monday	9am – 7pm
Huntington	Tuesday	9am – 7pm
Merrick	Wednesday	9am – 8pm
Huntington	Thursday	9am – 7pm
Huntington	Friday	9am – 7pm

+1 (516) 231-4402