Dealing With Headaches

Sometimes you can’t rely on medicines to take away headache pain. And there are times where you can’t dive under the bed cushions in a dark room for an hour waiting for the pain to subside to a dull roar. One of the alternative health systems is called reflexology — which is basically foot massage. The theory is that all parts of the body can be positively affected when you touch certain parts of the hands or feet. By the way, the big toe is connected to the genitalia.

Now That I’ve Got Your Attention

Back from the big toe rub, huh? Yes, there is something to this reflexology thing. And some people will respond to it more than others. If you can’t bend over to rub your feet, you will either have to have someone else rub them or try something else. But some relief can be had if you soak your feet in a warm foot bath with large pebbles in the bath. Rub the soles of your feet gently over the pebbles. Aromatherapy oils are optional.

The Golf Ball Technique

For a quicker and drier alternative to a foot soak, there is something called “The Golf Ball Technique” specifically for headaches. This is a massage of your hands, so you don’t even have to sit down.

The basic steps are:

• Get a golf ball
• Place on the palm of one hand (doesn’t matter which)
• Clasp both hands together, interlocking the fingers
• Move your hands so the golf ball massages your palms and below your thumbs

And that’s all there is to it. This is NOT meant to take the place of all headache medications or a doctor’s professional advice. But it does feel good.

Hope this helps.

Migraines have often been linked with one kind brain deficiency or another, often erroneously. Seeing or hearing the hallucinations auras can bring, followed by sudden and all-encompassing pain can make even the most skeptical think they have been attacked by demons. Those with migraines in the past were thought to have mental illnesses, not physical illnesses.

Although there does seem to be a high percentage of depression linked with migrqaines, especially in women, could migraines actually help preserve your memory? Perhpas with all of the discussions about symptoms you have to with doctors, employers and friends, that gives your brain some memory training.

But Seriously…

Researchers at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University have been following the life and health histories nearly 1500 women from studies in 1993 and in 2005. The findings were released in the April 24, 2007 issue of Neurology. 204 of the women suffered from migraines. All of the women were given memory tests, such as word recall. The findings were inconclusive, but intregeing. Those women without migraines did 17% worse than the migraine group.

One theory is that the medication (NSAIDs such as ibuprofen) taken for migrianes may help preserve memory as a side effect. I still prefer my theory that those with migraines need to constantly remember doctor appointments, when to take a pill and relating the latest chapter in The Migraine Chronicles to anyone who will listen.

The Good News

Although more studies will need to be done to determine whether women with migraines do retain their memory better than the migraine-free, there is good immediate news — Migraines were shown not to play any significant role in causing brain damage. So, if you’re acting a bit mental, don’t blame your migraines — it’s just you.

Hope this helps.

One of the most annoying and soul-sucking aspects of having migraines or chronic, debilitating headaches is that the world keeps going on at a rapid rate and expects you to keep up. It is very hard to get any understanding, let alone sympathy, for what you have to go through. This causes more stress and anxiety for the headache sufferer, and can contribute or prolong headache pain.

Enter the perfect perscription for comfort, sympathy and understanding — the family pet.

Paging Dr. Fish

Ever wonder why a lot of doctor’s and dentists’ offices have large fish tanks? Because watching fish in tanks can calm you down. Watching the fish swim and do the fishy things they do even helped blood pressure more than hypnosis, according to one study in the late 1980’s. Aquariums are now recommended for Alzheimer’s patients, becuase patients with regular visual access to the acquarium ate more and were less violent.

There is something incredibly soothing about watching fish swim. Perhaps the motions trigger a relaxing response in our cerebral cortex. Who knows? And for those of us who can’t keep fish for whatever reason, there are always the options of watching videos of fish. Just watching the fish can be like a meditation.

Dogs And Cats

Dogs and cats are champion interpeters of our body language. They seem to know exactly how we are really feeling. They often are a source of comfort and calm by just sitting close or letting you pet them. Perhaps headaches and migraines put out their own identifying odor — we just don’t know yet. But many pet owners have been comforted and helped through a bad time halthwise with the quiet companionship of a dog or a cat.

There are many other health benefits of sharing your home with a dog or a cat or an animal that will let you pet him or her. The calming action reduces stress that can contribute to headaches or migraines, lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and give you a reason to get out of bed.

Pets are a bit more predictable than human friends or family members when you are sick. They don’t give you a lecture, either. This can act like a sturdy lifeline through the rough seas of dealing with headaches.

Hope this helps.

The Sept 4, 2007 issue of Neurology features a study about women with migraines. It concludes that women get migraines more when they have been abused in childhood. And considering that women suffer from migraines at a 3 to 1 ratio than men, does this mean that most women have been abused as children?

Probably Not

This study was performed by the University of Toledo Health Science Campus by surveying 949 women with migraines. 40% of the women had chronic headache (more than 15 a month). 72% felt pain from migraines and headaches they described as “debilitating”. The researchers asked them about theit childhoods, specifically about aduse. They found that 38% had been abused as children.

In this study, “abuse” is defined as physical abuse, living under fear for their lives and/or living in a home with one or more adults who were addicts of some sort. If this abuse continued after the girl reached 12, she was five more times likely to develop depression as well as migraines.

So, What Does This Mean?

As for treating migraines in women, not a heck of a lot. The study was not really concerned with headache treatment. The study was more interested in depression treatment. The study hopes that by a doctor knowing that their patient had been abused as a child, she is more prone to have depression.

One of the theories about why women get migraines so much more than men is that they may suffer from depression more. Depression is rather mysterious disease and the cause is not entirely clear. It often manifests in painful physical sysmptoms as well as morbid emotions. But if a woman is having migraines, perhaps being treated with anti-depressants can help the migraines because it helps the depression.

Can You Have Depression Without Having Been Abused?

You certianly can! Just look at me. I was never abused as a child and yet developed migraines, barometric pressure headaches, sinus headaches and endogenous recurring depression. Both my parents have major depression and a history of head pains.

One of the reasons this study is getting some frowns is that it implies that 40% of girls are being routinely abused. Also, it implies that if a doctor asks a women patient if they had been abused as a child, that they will tell the truth. Adult victims of child abuse are actually very reluctant to remember or mention their abuse.

If questioning an adult woman about childhood abuse is meant to help diagnose depression, could it be possible that the questions might trigger a dangerous depressive episode in the patient?

It probably depends on the patient, and how comfortable they feel talking to their doctor. If a patient really wants helps with their physical symptoms, then they must be willing to lay all their cards on the table. On the one hand, this study does recognise the holistic nature of illness (that not only is illness caused from physical reasons, but mental and emotional, too). It also points out that what happens in childhood can affect someone throughout their adulthood.

But on the other hand, the other 62% of women with migraines are left wondering what the heck they can do. Perhaps soon a study will be made for them.

When you have to get up, you have to get up, whether for work, school, emptying your bladder or taking the dog out to empty his or her bladder. You might not consider yourself a morning person. One of these reasons may be because you tend to gt headaches in the morning. They’re not as bad as migraines, cluster headaches or getting hit in the head with a sledgehammer headache, but they are pretty painful and can definately get the work week off to a bad start.

Well, you are not alone. This kind of headache has a name — chronic morning headache. And if it has a name, then many people must suffer from it. Correct. According to a 2004 European study, 1 in 13 people have chronic morning headache. The two groups most affected were women and anybody in the age group 45-64.

What’s Up With That?

At first, it was thought that chronic morning headache was from such sleep disorders as grinding your teeth, night terrors (where you act out your bad dreams) or sleep apnea. But in this 2004 study of over 19,000 European volunteers, most of those afflicted with chronic morning headache also had some form of depression.

Depression’s worst symptoms can often hit especially bad in the morning. Not all of those diagnosed with depression will get chronic morning headaches (some feel worse in the evening and adore the mornings) but if have chronic morning headaches, be really honest with yourself that you might have depression. The disease depression (also called major depression or clinical depression) can often manifest in strange physical symptoms. At the very least, get your blood pressure checked.

If you are daignosed with depression or high blood pressure, there are many medications and diet changes you can do to help ease not only your overall condition, but your severity and number of headaches in the monring.

What If You’re Not Depressed

There are other reasons that you may be getting chronic morning headache other than depression, high blood pressure or sleep disorders. Headaches — even to the point of migraines — are a main withdrawal symptom from caffeine. The easiest way to diagnose if you have a caffeine dependency is to, on your day off, not touch anything with caffeine in it for 24 hours. That means no coffe, no soda, no tea (except herbal) and no chocolate. If you get a migraine then BINGO you have discovered you are caffeine dependent and need to start reducing your caffeine intake.

The National Headache Foundation also has this information about some of the physical changes that may be goin on when you wake up:

Between about 4 AM and 8 AM, the body tends to produce less of its natural painkillers, the endorphins and enkephalins, than at other times of the day. Adrenalin is released in larger quantities during the early morning hours. Since adrenalin affects blood pressure and the regulation of dilation or contraction of the blood vessels, it may play a role in migraine attacks.

Rarely, serious diseases may cause early morning awakening headaches. These diseases may include brain tumors, sleep apnea, and severe high blood pressure.

Treatment

If you have morning headaches for over 15 days in a row, congradulations, you have chronic morning headache. Since we have seen that there are so many possible sources for chronic morning headaches, you need to get a proper diagnosis in order to be able to treat them. The good news is that they are treatable, since they do seem to be a part of an overall health problem rather than just a mysterious pain in the brain. Many people — especially if they are caffeine dependant — find that first cup of coffee gets rid of the headache for that morning. Some people also get relief from over the counter medications targeted for tension headaches.

Hope this helps. And happy Labor Day.