Lysine dose may reduce migraine severity in post-COVID 6 day migraine cycle by assisting calcium transport out of the blood and reducing vasoconstriction.

 The reason for posting today is I wanted to share something helpful, which seems significant given the interest in calcium in human physiology in relation to ME shown by Marshall-Gradisnik et al at Griffith in Australia, so I wanted to write it out on the internet to make this observation available.

The story goes, I noticed in one of my migraine cycles I did not get severe headache as usual, just thick head and cognitive decrease.

I keep a food diary so a month later, after a few intervening cycles with normal levels of migraine pain, I attempted to recapitulate the exact same diet over the 6 days cycle, including supplements and found once again I had zero pain.

I then analysed the diet and researched the different elements and to cut a long story short I discovered the relevant factor appears to have been taking a lysine dose just before the inflammatory migraine phase, which reduced pain significantly.

I have since been able to replicate and use this to take lysine as a remedy if I feel a migraine coming on to stop and alleviate it, which is a big relief for me, to have something which helps.

The scientific reasoning behind my conclusion is that Lysine is known to assist calcium transport, among other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysine#Biological_roles

Lysine has also been implicated ... in other biological processes including ... calcium homeostasis, and fatty acid metabolism.

Which references a paper "Dietary L-lysine and calcium metabolism in humans" by Civitelli et al.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1486246/

Studies in animals have shown that dietary supplements with certain amino acids, particularly L-lysine, can increase Ca absorption.

As I discussed in the previous blog, I have already noticed I have a problem with calcium supplements causing headaches and taking its competitor magnesium can help to alleviate some pain during the cycle. Also there is a fluctuation in the 6 day cycle which may indicate changes in calcium levels which meant that I needed to time magnesium supplements to coincide with these. The problem is that high Mg doses can cause diarrhea and also muscle pain if they interfere with Ca absorbtion to muscle cells.

Hypothetically a lysine dose might help manage blood calcium levels by transporting Ca  out of the blood and into cells, where it belongs. So instead of taking large doses of Mg to compete with the Ca flux in the blood I can now just take a dose of lysine to reduce blood Ca content and this in turn might hypothetically be reducing the tendency to vasoconstriction which causes the headaches because Ca in the blood may be promoting vasoconstriction.

All I can say for sure is that it reduces pain if I take lysine before the inflammatory episode which otherwise would result in a migraine.

Hope that makes sense.

Update - Further corroborration comes from a 1989 experiment with human fibroblasts.

Effect of L-lysine on cytosolic calcium homeostasis in cultured human normal fibroblasts. 

Civitelli R, Fedde KN, Harter J, Halstead LR, Gennari C, Avioli LV. Calcif Tissue Int. 1989 Sep;45(3):193-7. doi: 10.1007/BF02556063. PMID:2505911. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2505911/

Steady state [Ca2+]i ... in cells cultured ... in a L-lysine-free medium, was significantly higher than in cells grown in the presence of as little as 4 μM L-lysine...

It is concluded that L-lysine is an important modulator of cytosolic calcium homeostasis.

 The implication is that lysine helps calcium cross membranes and get around the body and interestingly that calcium can build up in some compartments, if there is a dearth of lysine. 

P.S. To share my full treatment method, I take NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) along with the lysine dose, not regularly, just as a one off of either 600mg or 700mg. I take the larger dose if I have not taken NAC for several days and the smaller dose if I have taken it in the last two days.

I take NAC because that is what I did during the pain free inflammatory cycle, which is the basis of this observation. I have not completed a thorough check yet but would not want to leave this out as it may be relevant. I feel intuitively that NAC assists somehow. All I know about it currently is, it is an acidic mucolytic antioxidant which may thin the blood as it is contraindicated for people with bleeding problems and has reputed antiviral and antibacterial properties. All I know is that if I take them both together (lysine and NAC) it seems to work better.