Living Well for Tomorrow

Virtually everyone gets a headache at one time or another.  An estimated 17.6 % of women and 6% of men in the United States experience headaches on more than an occasional basis, and 20 million regularly experience cluster and migraine headaches.  Headaches are as common–and as difficult to cure–as the common cold and flu.  Common causes of headache include stress, tension, anxiety, allergies, constipation, coffee consumption, eyestrain, hunger, sinus pressure, muscle tension, hormonal imbalances, temporomandibular joint (TMJ), trauma to the head, nutritional deficiencies, the use of alcohol, drugs, or tobacco, fever, and exposure to irritants such as pollution, perfume, or after-shave lotions.  Migraines result from a disturbance in the blood circulation to the head.

Headache experts estimate that 90% of all headaches are tension headaches adn 6% are migraines.  Tension headaches, as the name implies, are caused by muscular tension.  Another type of headache is the cluster headache.  These are severe, recurring headaches that strike about 1 million Americans, and are widely considered to be the most painful type of headache.

Headaches can also be a sign of an underlying health problem.  People who suffer from frequent headaches may be reacting to certain foods and food additives–such as wheat, chocolate, monosodium glutamate (MSG), sulfites–used in restaurants on salad bars, sugar, hot dogs, luncheon meats, dairy products, nuts, citric acid, fermented foods–cheeses, sour cream, yogurt–alcohol, vinegar, and/or marinated foods.  Other possibilities to consider are anemia, bowel problems, brain disorders such as tumors, bruxim–tooth grinding, hypertension–high blood pressure, hypoglycemia–low blood sugar, sinusitis, spinal misalignment, toxic overdose of vitamin A, vitamin B deficiency, and diseases of the eye, nose, and throat,  Dehydration also can cause headaches–often accompanied by a feeling of being flushed, a warm face, and a sense of heaviness in the head.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

–Eat a well-balanced diet, including protein with every meal.  Avoid chewing gum, consuming ice cream, iced beverages, or salt, and guard against excessive sun exposure.

–Try eliminating foods containing tyramine and the amino acid phenylalanine.  Then reintroduce one food at a time and see which ones produce headaches.  Phenylalanine is found in aspartame )equal, NutraSweet), monosodium glutamate (MSG), nitrites (preservatives found in hot dogs and luncheon meats).  Foods that contain tyramine include alcoholic beverages, bananas, cheese, chicken, chocolate, citrus fruits, cold cuts, Herring, onions, peanut butter, pork, smoked fish, sour cream, vinegar, wine, and fresh-baked yeast products.  Tyramin causes the blood pressure to rise, resulting in a dull headache.

–Practice deep-breathing exercises.  A lack of oxygen can cause headaches.

–Maintain good posture habits.

–If you feel a headache coming on, drink a large glass of water every 3 hours until symptoms subside.

–Apply cold compresses to the spot from which the pain is radiating.  This helps relieve headaches by constricting blood vessels and easing muscle spasms.  Leave a damp washcloth in the freezer for ten minutes or use a cold gel pack.

–Use a heating pad, hot water bottle, or hot towel to relax neck and shoulder muscles, which can cause tension when they are too tight.

–Acupressure is helpful for tension headaches, and pain.  Take you thumb and press up firmly underneath your skull, at the back of you neck, for one to two minutes.

–For headaches caused by sinus congestion, try self-massage.  By applying pressure to specific areas of the head, you can open up the sinuses and ease tension.  Rub the area surrounding the bones just above and below the eyes, and massage the cheeks directly in lie with these points.  Lean your head forward slightly to facilitate sinus drainage.  Applying heat to the sinus, either with compresses or with steam inhalation, can also be beneficial.

–Always seek and treat the cause of the headache, not the symptom.  Long-term over reliance on aspirin acetaminophen, and other non prescription painkillers can make chronic headaches worse by interfering with the brain’s natural ability to fight headaches.  If you are using non prescription painkillers more than four times a week, talk to your health care provider about other ways to control the pain.

–If you experience a headache that does not subside, but instead progressively worsens over the course of a week, consult your physician.  This can be a sign of an underlying organic problem such as a tumor.

–To help prevent headaches, eat small meals and heat between meals to help stabilize wide swings in blood sugar.  Include almonds, almond milk, watercress, parsley, fennel, garlic, cherries, and pineapple in your diet.

–Be sure to get sufficient sleep.  Inositol and/or calcium, if taken before bedtime, aid in sleeping.  A grapefruit half also helps.  Do not heat sweet fruit or anything else sweet after 5:00 PM.

–If you suffer from headaches while taking birth control pills, talk to your doctor about switching to a low-estrogen formulation for going off the pills for a while.  Oral contraceptives can cause a vitamin B6 deficiency that results in headaches and migraines.

–If you must eat a food to which suspect you may be sensitive ,use charcoal tables (from a healthfood store). 

–If any of the following symptoms accompany the headache, consult your health care provider:  blurred vision, confusion  or loss of speech, fever and stiffness in the neck, sensitivity to light, pressure behind the eyes that is relieved by vomiting, pressure in the facial sinus area, throbbing of the head and temples, a pounding heartbeat, visual color changes, and feeling as through you head will explode.  Seek immediate medical attention if you experience a sudden, severe headache like a “thunderclap,” or if you experience a headache after a head injury, even a minor fall or bump.  Chronic headache pain that worsens after coughing, exertion, straining, or sudden movement is also reason to seek professional help.

–If you suffer from more than the occasional tenson headache, keep a headache log to help your health care provider diagnose your condition.  Keep the log for at least two months, noting the time of each headache and describing the pain (throbbing or dull), its severity, location and duration.

–If you get a headache every time you exercise, see your health care provider to rule out heart problems.  A headache that begins with exercise and then subsides after rest can be a cardiac headache.

CONSIDERATIONS

**Headaches are often caused by allergies.  A food allergy diary can help identify offending foods.

**Poor vertebral alignment may cause reduced blood flow to the brain.  This is often caused by flat feet or by wearing high heels.  Chiropractic adjustment can help.

**Routine chiropractic spinal manipulation and deep neck muscle massage can reduce the frequency of headaches and the need for pain-relieving medications.

**Regular exercise can help prevent headaches caused by tension and may also reduce the frequency and severity of migraines.  But headaches with organic causes can be made worse by exercise.  Talk to your health care provider about your headaches before using exercise to control the pain.

**Researchers are studying the possibility that the trigemina nerve pathway (the site of the nerve responsible for sensation in the face, mouth, and nasal cavity) and the brain chemical serotonin are factors in severe headaches.  Disturbances in serotonin levels are associated with the most headaches.  In migraines, serotonin levels increase before onset and then decrease during the headache phase.  In chronic tension headaches, serotonin levels remain low all the time.  As a result of lower serotonin levels, an impulse moves along the trigeminal nerve to blood vessels in the meninges, the brain’s outer covering.  This causes blood vessels in the meninges to dilate and become inflamed and swollen.  The result is a headache.

**The drug sumatriptan (Imitrex) is sometimes prescribed for relief of migraines.  This drug works by increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain.  It is relatively expensive, however, and must be administered by injection (it is sold in the form of a home injection kit).  Possible side effects include increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, and a feeling of tightness in the chest, jaw, or neck.

**Some doctors prescribe the drug lidocaine (Anestacon, Xylocaine) for cluster headaches.  Used in nose drop form, it gives releif in minutes.

**Researsh shows that sleeping in a bedroom kept at a cooler temperature can help prevent cluster headaches.  Headaches are more frequent when environmental heat increases body temperature, which causes blood vessels to dilate.

**Studies showed taking 10 milligrams of melatonin near bedtime to be effective in reducing the frequency of episosdic cluster headaches.  Chrnic cluster headaches did not show improvement with this treatment, however.

**Women who suffer from migraines may benefit from using progesterone cream topically.

**There are a number of common misdiagnoses of headache, including sinus pain, allergies, and temporomandibular joint syndrome (TMJ).  What many people think are sinus headaches are really migraines.  Sinus infections can cause brief, intense bouts of head pain, but recurring headaches are more likely to be tension headaches, migraines, or cluster headaches.  Facial pain, pain the temples, or pain above the ear s sometimes diagnosed as temporomandibular joint  (TMJ) headache, caused by the joint of the jawbone being out of alignment.  But this too may actually be on e of the common types of headache, which may be triggered or aggravated by the joint.

**Carbon monoxide poisoning can cause headache, in addition to nausea, vomiting, and neurological problems.  Some 200 Americans die each year, and another 10,000 ar3e treated in emergency rooms, for carbon monoxide exposure from leaking furnaces, gas ranges, and water heaters.  Early signs of carbon monoxide poisoning are sometimes misdiagnosed.  One way to protect your self is to invest in a carbon monoxide detector.  These can be purchased at hardware stores.