Headaches

Stop the Pain That Drains Your Brain

They pound, throb, ache or bug you just enough that your day is ruined. They can make your head feel like it's filled with 100 pounds of wet concrete or make it painfully buzz as if a sadistic bumblebee were doing figure eights on your frontal lobe.

The two most common types of headaches are tension (or muscle contraction) headaches and migraines. With tension headaches, you usually feel a steady, uncomfortable pressure, but not enough to completely disable you from your daily routine. A migraine, by comparison, is an intense, throbbing pain that can last for a few hours or even days, sometimes accompanied by vomiting, nausea and sensitivity to light and noise.

Not only do many women get stuck dealing with menstrual pain and bloating every month, but they also get stuck with a lot worse headache pain than most men. That's probably due to the changes in estrogen levels that rule their monthly cycles: Women prone to headaches are more likely to get them during their periods and at midcycle, during ovulation.

Other triggers common to both sexes are nervous tension or stress, sinus congestion, certain foods (like aged cheese), caffeine withdrawal, environmental factors like pollen or pollution, muscle tension, light, loud noise and being overly tired or hungry. And headaches tend to run in families, so if your mother or grandmother got these head-splitters, then you're more likely to get them, too.

DRUG-FREE RELIEF

Whether caused by tension, stress, noise, light, eating the wrong foods or hereditary factors, headaches have one thing in common--they hurt.

Painkillers like acetaminophen, aspirin or ibuprofen often bring relief. But you don't have to automatically down aspirin or other pain medication that can leave you feeling out of sorts. An amazing number of nondrug approaches can bring relief. Here are practitioners' top picks.

Smell your way well. The smell of fresh peppermint is a headache-easer, says Paul Petit, D.C., certified chiropractic sports physician, aromatherapist and naturopath in Poway, California. If you have a tension headache or migraine, you can inhale the peppermint from the bottle for quick relief, he says.

Rub on essential oil of oregano. When massaged on the skin, scents of oregano and lavender (Lavandula officinalis) also work well for sinus headaches because they have anti-infectious properties, Dr. Petit notes. "The bacteria offer no resistance to some essential oils. These oils have been on Earth since the beginning of time. Antibiotics have just been here for the last 50 to 60 years." When using oil externally, especially with massages, always dilute them in vegetable oil, such as almond oil, at a concentration of 20 percent to 65 percent, advises Dr. Petit.

Rinse your nose out. Irrigating your sinuses is another good solution for sinus headaches, says Thomas M. Kidder, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology and human communications at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

To unclog nasal passages, make a saline solution from one level teaspoon of table salt and 13 ounces of warm water, and then sniff it into your nose through cupped hands. Or take a bulb syringe and squirt into your nose, or use a water pick with a bulb-tip adapter that fits into the nostril. "If you squirt it into the congested nostril and lean forward, the saline will drain out the other nostril. It cleans out the nose and the thick secretions that you get there," says Dr. Kidder.

Give pain the rub. Getting a head massage can be a soothing experience, notes Dr. Petit. It's not always easy to drop everything and head for a massage therapist every time you have a headache. But you can deeply massage the back of your head where the cranium starts and the vertebrae stop, and the temples on either side of your eye, which are definite pressure points during headaches. "I'd say that you need a deep massage of the area for 10 to 20 minutes," says Dr. Petit. "Those points act as an accessory pump to the brain, so this helps get your blood pumping, relaxing constricted blood vessels."

Hit the right spot. Applying reflexology techniques on your toes could lead to headache relief, says Dwight Byers, president of the International Institute of Reflexology in St. Petersburg, Florida, and author of Better Health with Foot Reflexology.

For tension headaches, which are often caused by tightness in the neck, back and shoulders, working the reflex areas of the foot that correspond with those body parts is the answer. That's your toes--and all their sides. "You don't want to rub the reflex areas, but use the end and corner of your thumb to apply pressure and work those reflexes. These are really small pressure points the size of a grain of sand, so you have to walk your thumb like a caterpillar that's inching its way along all the toes," he says. "Go up, down and all around, as you see fit."

Turn to magnesium. Physicians have found that an injection of magnesium can turn a migraine around, notes Alan Gaby, M.D., professor of therapeutic nutrition at Bastyr University of Naturopathic Medicine in Seattle. "People with migraines have a higher than normal need for magnesium because the migraine throws off magnesium metabolism," says Dr. Gaby. The magnesium connection was evident in a study of 37 women and 3 men who suffered migraines. Within 15 minutes of getting injections for migraines in progress, 35 reported at least 50 percent less pain. In 21 of those people, pain relief lasted for 24 hours or more.

A smart preventive step is to add magnesium--about 200 to 500 milligrams a day--to your diet, Dr. Gaby says. (If you have kidney or heart problems, it's a good idea to check with your doctor before taking supplemental magnesium.)

Cool it with calcium. Some women with migraines have found help when calcium was added to a magnesium injection, says Dr. Gaby. "Some patients who don't respond to magnesium respond to the other vitamins. I'm not sure anyone knows how that works, but it definitely works faster and better than chemical drugs."

In one report, two women with a history of menstrual migraines experienced a major reduction in headaches after two months of treatment with a combination of 1,200 milligrams of calcium and 1,200 to 1,600 international units (IU) of cholecalciferol, a prescription-only form of vitamin D.

Caution: Vitamin D can be toxic above 600 IU. Use it only with a doctor's supervision. (For details on locating a physician experienced in treating health problems with higher-than-over-the-counter dosages of vitamins or minerals, see page 306.)

Leaf your pain behind. Eating a single leaf of the herb feverfew every day may help keep migraines and chronic headaches at bay, says Ethan Russo, M.D., a neurologist at the Western Montana Clinic in Missoula, academic adjunct professor in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Montana in Missoula and clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "It's unknown how it works but it's an anti-inflammatory and painkiller."

Although you can buy feverfew capsules in health food stores, Dr. Russo says that you can't be sure of their quality. "I usually recommend growing a plant of your own," he notes. "You can get seeds anywhere that you can get herbs. Your best bet is to try to find a local supplier of fresh herbs, or look through seed catalogs. It's not a hard plant to grow."

Try nature's cure. In their book The Complete Guide to Homeopathy, Andrew Lockie, M.D., and Nicola Geddes, M.D., suggest the following homeopathic remedies for migraines, depending on your symptoms.

If the migraine is worse on the left side, with severe nausea and vomiting and pain that extends to the face, mouth or teeth, the remedy is taking 6c of ipecac every 15 minutes for up to ten doses. (Homeopathic remedies are available in different potencies, or concentrations, expressed by a number and commonly followed by the letter "c".)

If it's a blinding, throbbing migraine that begins with numbness and tingling in the lips and tongue and the pain is severe and pulsating, the remedy is taking 6c of nux vomica every hour for up to six doses.

If it's a migraine that settles over the right eye, usually starting in the morning at the back of the head and spreading up to the forehead, the remedy is sanguinaria, which should be taken at the fist sign of an attack, in a dosage of 6c every 15 minutes for up to ten doses.

Note: If you don't improve within the time period noted on the remedy package or you experience chronic migraines, see a physician. If a headache follows a head injury or it's severe and associated with a fever or lasts more than a few days, seek immediate medical assistance.

HEAD GAMES FOR HEAD PAIN

Sometimes, the pain in your head can be cured by the same thing--your head, says Joseph P. Primavera III, Ph.D., psychologist and co-director of the Comprehensive Headache Center at Germantown Hospital and Medical Center in Philadelphia.

Relaxation techniques such as self-hypnosis, biofeedback, imagery and meditation all help to calm the autonomic nervous system, the network that connects your brain, spinal cord, nerves, blood vessels and organs. So each of these can cut down on headaches, notes Dr. Primavera.

"Anything that can relax you is a different way of getting to the same place--being pain-free," he says. "So if someone enjoys prayerful meditation, I don't tell them to do something else. The most important thing is that you choose a method that works for you."

Take a breather. Sometimes, stopping everything that you're doing and simply breathing deeply can work wonders for tension headaches, says Dr. Primavera. "Stop doing whatever you were doing that was stressful. Take slow, deep, rhythmic breaths. Breathing this way alters your carbon dioxide level and sends a message to your brain to slow your heartbeat and promote the relaxation response."

A quick way to take a breather is by slowly taking a deep inhalation through your mouth, filling up your lungs and then taking a full respiration through your nose and breathing out nice and slow, Dr. Primavera says. "It makes you pay attention and breathe slow and rhythmically."

Learn to relax. If you have tension headaches, biofeedback (a technique that measures your muscle tension and body temperature) is a good way to learn to read your body, says Angele McGrady, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and physiology at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo and past president of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback based in Wheatridge, Colorado.

In about eight to ten visits to a biofeedback specialist, you can learn to detect clues that your body gives off, before succumbing to tension, says Dr. McGrady. Use deep breathing exercises or imagery recommended by the specialist. For instance, you might imagine yourself walking along the beach and listening to sounds of the ocean to relax yourself whenever you feel tension setting in. "So once you become aware of when a headache is coming on, you'll be able to do something about it," she says.