Posts Tagged ‘migraines’
Headache Treatment
While we are suffering from a headache it is natural to try to think of ways to stop the pain. However, as there are different types of headaches, the treatments may work for only a few of the headache types. There are two different ways of stopping the pain caused by headaches. These types of headache treatment are called prophylactical and abortive headache treatments.
The prophylactic treatment needs to be taken everyday in order to reduce the frequency of the attacks and to control the severity of the headache. Abortive headache treatment is begun only when the headache starts.
You should understand that your doctor will not prescribe any prophylactic headache treatment unless you are suffering from several, frequent headache attacks per month. When you take the prophylactic medication you will be monitored for side effects like weight gain, water retention, lethargy, memory impairment and hallucinations.
The treatment of headaches with prophylactic medication begins with a low dosage. The dose is then increased regularly. You will also be tested every month or so to see if the treatment is taking effect. Your doctor will also make sure that you are not taking any other types of medication or vitamins during this phase of your headache treatment.
It is very important for the doctor to know whether the sufferer is or becomes pregnant. If you do become pregnant, then your doctor should be told, so that tests can be carried out to discover any possible side effects to the unborn foetus.
The primary prescription drugs given for the treatment of headaches are beta blockers like Tenormin and Lopressor. Calcium channel blockers such as Cardizem, Dilacor, and Procardia are also used. Doctors can also prescribe anti-depressants such as Elavil and Zoloft. You may also be prescribed Serotonin Antagonists like Sansert.
Sometimes anti-convulsants such as Tegretol, Depakote, and Dilantin are given for headache treatment. Cafergot and Sansert, which are ergot derivatives, could also be given by your doctor. The abortive headache treatment that you can take for your headache pain is generally the over the counter type. These include Paracetamol, Aspirin, Tylenol, Panadol, Motrin, and Advil to name but a few. Tylenol and Panadol are known as Acetaminophen drugs. Motrin and Advil belong to the group of drugs that are known as Ibuprofen.
Besides these headache medications there are non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs or NSAID’s. The side effects of NSAIDs like Naprosyn and Meclomen include nausea, gastrointestinal pain, dizziness, diarrhea, light-headedness and constipation. These headache treatments can also cause the side-effect of a different form of headache in some people.
Since these drugs can cause other problems you should consult your doctor in order to find out whether they are suitable for you or not. People who prefer an ‘alternative’ headache treatment should ask their doctor whether he thinks it will work.
If you suffer from migraine or headaches, you ought to definitely go to our website at Stopping Headaches.
Chronic Tension Headaches – What Can I Do?
There are so many sorts of headache and headaches are so common, that there is a very good chance that everyone you know has had them or still gets them. The reasons why people get headaches are just as wide-ranging. It could be stress, over-medication, migraine, lack of calories or tension. One of the worst kinds is chronic tension headaches.
A normal tension headache feels as if a belt is being done up tightly around your forehead, but they do not have a tendency to last very long and they are infrequent. A chronic tension headache is the same, but it may come every day or even a couple of times a day. A headache is classified as a chronic tension headache if you get a tension headache more than fifteen times in a month for several consecutive months.
Therefore, if you suspect that you are suffering from this type of headache, start to write notes in a diary. When? Where? How bad? How long it lasted? And anything else that you think may be relevant, like what you have eaten or drunken that day and the day before. You may notice a connection to work or diet.
Some sufferers describe the pain as like having a very tight strap wrapped around their head, others say the sensation of constraint goes down as far as their shoulders. In general, sufferers of tension and chronic tension headaches agree, that the pain is worst in the forehead, then along the sides of the head and sometimes at the back as well.
They say that the normal level of pain is a dull ache which can be mild to moderate in intensity. It is more of a nagging, always-on pain than a sharp, distracting pain.
Chronic tension headaches appear to be early risers, that is, some people wake up with them and others say that they begin just after they get up in the morning. It is as if the contemplation of the day ahead is almost too much too bear. The pain can intensify at certain periods of the day, or it can simply slowly slip away practically unobserved.
Chronic tension headaches are nowhere near as universal as normal tension headaches, but they are twice as common in women as in men.
The main issue with these headaches, besides the pain itself, is that they become a routine event. You wait for it to happen, you are that sure that it will accompany you throughout the day as normal. The pain can just become one continuous drag on your life.
For this reason, sufferers of CTH are often vulnerable to depression and anxiety and it is difficult to know which came first, the CTH or the depression / anxiety and which is causing which. If you think this could be your problem, do not try to cure the headaches yourself, go to see a doctor about the depression or anxiety, have that sorted out and the chronic tension headaches may disappear too without any further medication.
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What Are Coital Headaches?
Orgasm is usually a pleasurable and positive experience for most people, but it can be painful for those who discover that it triggers coital headaches. For sufferers, sexual activity of any kind can result in coital headache attacks.
Technically, a headache, or cephalalgia, is a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and sometimes the neck too. They can be classified into two main groups: primary or idiopathic, and symptomatic, although there are other ways of classifying them too; for example by severity.
Basically, primary headaches have a known or unknown reason, whereas symptomatic headaches are often the result of trauma. Primary headaches include amongst others: migraine, tension headaches, cluster headaches and coital headaches.
Coital headaches, also called coital cephalalgia or sexual headaches, is a rare, but severe type of headache that starts in the nape of the neck during sexual intercourse, but before climax. It can occur in all conditions where climax is the expected result. The pain can move to behind the eyes and can then become even more severe. Typically the pain will last from a few minutes to an hour or so, but it has been known to last for days in the worst cases.
Men are three times more prone to coital headaches than women and the age groups most at risk are those between 20 and 25 and 30 and 44. Nobody really understands why this should be. Coital headaches affect about one percent of the population, although this figure could be a lot higher due to people being embarrassed to talk about it.
Moreover, coital headaches are benign, which means that they have no long-term adverse consequences, as far as we know. It seems that people taking sexual stimulants, like Cialis, are roughly 10% more at risk to a coital headache. In fact, apart from the obvious, temporary pain, the worst issues of coital headaches are differing levels of dizziness, confusion and stiffness of neck.
However, it is still worth seeing a doctor though, especially in the early cases, just to exclude the more serious causes of headaches, such as brain tumours and blood clots. However, the doctor can do rather little to help by way of cure. He could suggest a complete abstention from any form of sexual practice for a period ranging from days to weeks or he may suggest trying taking medication some time before sexual foreplay commences.
Some of the headache medications that may be used are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches continue, your doctor could prescribe daily preventive medication. People suffering from frequent coital headaches may obtain a positive response to migraine preventive medications, such as beta blockers or verapamil. Non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen may also be helpful. Coital headaches and migraines are also more likely to occur if a person is in poor physical shape.
However, the treatment for coital headaches for a lot of people can be as simple as bringing your weight up or down to the normal weight for your size. Coital headaches can also be cured in some sufferers by an increased level of exercise, although this could bring on exertion headaches in a few cases.
The good news is though that most headaches related to sex are not serious in nature. In deed, various studies actually suggest that orgasm can relieve headaches and migraine in some cases. This implies that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the reason that delays headache treatment.
If you suffer from migraine or headaches, you should definitely go to our website on Stopping Headaches.
The Different Types Of Headaches
There are quite a number of commonly-known kind of headache. These include pressure headaches, migraine headaches, tension headaches, chronic daily headaches, cluster headaches, ice pick headaches and sinus headaches.
A migraine headache is a severe headache. This sort of headache has been found to have a profound impact on the daily lives of its sufferers. The pain can be a pulsating sensation or sometimes a throbbing type of head pain. This throbbing pain can be moderate to severe. The symptoms of migraine headaches include nausea, extreme sensitivity to light and sound. With the migraine sort of headache there is often an early warning feeling called an aura.
This aura is experienced in the form of changes in visual perception. You may see bright flashes or blurs and sometimes you may even lose part of your vision. You may even experience a numbness or a tingling in your arms. These warning symptoms will dissipate a while before the migraine attack begins. A migraine headache can last for about three days without any treatment, before it subsides.
The kinds of tension headache cause a dull, constant pain in the forehead, the sides or back of the head. Some people compare a tension headache to a tight band wrapped around the head and it is considered to be one of the most common types of headache. A tension headache does not create symptoms like light sensitivity, loss of sight, nausea and vomiting.
Tension headaches occur in episodic or chronic types. Generally, most sufferers of this sort of tension headache, experience chronic headaches. It is estimated that about 40% of the population suffers from tension headaches. Chronic daily headaches are another of these types of headache.
Most chronic daily headaches are tension headaches or headaches which are the result of taking too many pain killers. With these kinds of headache, the pain is of a constant, dull nature – there may also be a feeling of tightness like a rubber band around the head. A chronic daily headache is diagnosed by its duration: the pain must last for at least 15 consecutive days per month during a three month period of time.
Another sort of headache is the Cluster headache group, which is a rare but very painful kind of headache. The name of this headache arises from the fact that the headache produces clusters of pain. Periods of continuous Cluster headaches may last weeks or months, but this is then followed up by long periods of no headaches at all.
Cluster headaches are usually to be found only on one side of the head at a time. The sharp, penetrating pain starts behind one eye. Furthermore, cluster headaches may cause red, watery eyes, a stuffy nose and sometimes symptoms like nausea and light sensitivity are be present too.
These are just a few of the many types of headaches that can be experienced. The pain from the headache can be mild or it can be excruciating in its severity. To find relief from these headaches you must talk with your doctor about treatment or you can buy some over the counter headache pain medication.
If you have a problem with migraine or headaches, you should definitely go along to our website on Stopping Headaches.
Migraine Headaches’ Causes
Headaches in any form are always very painful for the sufferer. However, some headaches, like migraines, for example, can create even more problems than just a headache. These problems could be sickness, light sensitivity and a banging pain in the head. Sometimes the headache is felt on one side of the head, although at other times you can feel the pain on both sides of your head at the same time.
The actual causes of migraine headaches has not yet been found, although there are a few theories why people experience migraine headaches. The most common theory is that an alteration in the blood flow within the brain is one of the triggers that causes migraine headaches. Another theory about migraine headache is that it could possibly be caused by pain sensing chemicals called neuropeptides.
Many medical professionals speculate that neuropeptides relax the muscle that surrounds the cranial blood vessels. This relaxation makes the blood vessels dilate. Then those relaxed blood vessels increase the flow of blood and other cranial fluid to the brain. This increase in fluids is thought to be the cause of migraine headaches.
These cranial fluids are the cause swelling, pain, sensitivity, tissue and blood vessel swelling during the time of the migraine headaches. Many people think that the aura that is sometimes seen during a migraine headache is caused by the constriction of the blood vessels that became dilated during the starting phase of the migraine headache.
Another theory as to the reason for migraine headaches has been linked to the genetics of inheritance. These theories say that a child of migraine sufferers will have a 50% probability of having migraine headaches as well.
The chances of inheriting migraine headaches become even greater if both parents are known to suffer from this painful type of headache. Should both parents be known to have frequent migraine headaches the chances of the child inheriting migraine headache symptoms is about 70%.
Now even though many professionals think that genetics plays a large role in migraine headaches the genes that may be considered as the causes of migraine headaches have not been identified or even isolated. When we begin to experience migraine headaches the only warning signs that we may receive are a throbbing pain in the temple area and light nausea.
As the symptoms of the migraine progresses, the pain becomes much more severe. Unfortunately, since the causes of migraine headaches have not been found and we don’t know what triggers these attacks, there are no medications to cure this sort of headaches yet.
If you have a problem with migraine or headaches, you really ought to visit our website at Stopping Headaches.