4. Experience: Ask them about their experience treating your condition (see above caveat). This will tell you how confident they are. A good practitioner with little experience may still know how to do as much for you as possible, especially if they keep up on literature! But experience does have value.

5. Cost & Payment: Find out how much they charge for initial and follow-up visits, if they have payment arrangements, and if they will bill your insurance (if your insurance covers it). Their charge will tell you more about their confidence level, and to some degree this is a measure of competence, although I have heard of bad care given by practitioners who nonetheless charged more than they deserved. Likewise, some very good and confident practitioners may not charge exorbitantly for their own philosophical reasons. The reasonable range is from $80-300 for an initial 2 hour visit, including acupuncture, and from $50-150 for follow up visits.

6. Compare & Decide: Compare results of your phone consults, not just in numbers and data, but on your "gut" feeling. It's important to have a good rapport with your practitioner to facilitate essential communication, relaxation, and trust. People are sometimes different on phone, so I wouldn't make this your determining criteria, but it may help you decide if other factors are more or less equal.

Most people worry about their weight and want to get rid of their appetites. But for a migraineur, not having an appetite is a problem. Whether you are enzyme deficient, or your gastrointestinal system is all backed up, or both, you need to fix it.

If you don't have an appetite, you won't eat enough (leading to hypoglycemia), and even if you do eat enough, you won't be able to digest it properly. Indigestion will create more problems, like acid reflux or intestinal stagnation. Since everything in your body is connected, and migraineurs are so sensitive, all of these things can contribute to a migraine.

Herbal Home Migraine Remedy Options: Let me tell you about a modern migraine formula, called Relieve Constraint.

This is a modern Chinese herbal formula, a home migraine remedy. It comes from a book by Philippe Sionneau, a famous European Chinese medicine translator and author. Philippe translated it from Chinese article written by Dr Cao De Ting in Shan Dong Chinese Medicine Journal (1988, #1).

The full name of this home migraine remedy is "Order Qi and Resolve Depression Decoction." It's based on what has become one of my favorite Chinese herbal formulas, "Yue ju wan," also known as "Escape Restraint Pill." This formula was written by herbal master Zhu Dan Xi in 14th century A.D.

The Relieve Constraint home migraine remedy relieves all 6 types of constraint (with herb for each):

qi (cyperus) blood (ligustici) dampness (atractylodes) food (shenqu) phlegm (atractylodes) heat (gardenia)

Added to basic Escape Restraint Pill (to make Relieve Constraint home migraine remedy) are several other herbs for emotional constraint, nourishing, moving excess qi and blood down out of head, relieving tension, and stopping pain. These herbs are chrysanthemum, cassia, tribulus, uncaria, peony, and licorice.

How do you use it? Take it when you know a migraine is coming, or even before that after one of migraine contributors has occurred in your daily life. It can help once migraine is already there, but as with other home migraine remedy, it's much more effective sooner you take it.

Depending on how bad and how frequent your migraines are, you might use this home migraine remedy every day, or every few days. If they're really bad, I'd take it every day for a while (2-4 weeks) until it's much better. Then, you still may need it occasionally unless you eliminate all migraine triggers, move to countryside, and live a perfectly relaxed life ;-)

Nutritional Supplement Home Migraine Remedy Options: Here are some nutrients suggested to be very important in Balch's Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing:

Calcium and Magnesium: 2000 mg daily Ca, 1000 mg daily Mg CoQ10: 60 mg daily Essential Fatty Acids Multivitamin and mineral formula Vitamin B3 (niacin) plus niacinamide: 200mg 3x daily of niacin, 800mg daily of niacinamide - but do not take if you have a liver disorder, gout, or high blood pressure Rutin: 200mg daily