Headaches can be extremely painful and frustrating, impacting on your sense of wellbeing and ability to function at your very best. If you are suffering from regular headaches, below are some of the common types and causes with some advice on how to manage them.
Migraines
Migraines can be the most painful type of headache experienced as well as the type that causes the most disruption to your daily activities.
They usually occur on one side of the head with a throbbing or pulsating quality and can also cause you to become sensitive to light and noise so that you end up needing to spend the day alone in bed in a dark room.
If this is what you are experiencing on a regular basis, see if you can identify the trigger. Migraines are commonly triggered by certain foods. Some of the common food triggers include coffee or caffeine, wines, cheese, sugar, chocolate and anything with the chemical MSG (a common flavour enhancer). If you're prone to headaches and regularly indulge in these foods, eliminate them one by one from your diet to see if you can find what is causing your migraines.
Tension Type Headaches
These are the most common type of headache that most office workers can relate to. They feel like a squeezing band at your temples or a headache that starts at the back of your head and moves forward to your temples on both sides.
These headaches tend to increase with stress and long hours spent in front of your work desk or computer.
Two things can help to combat these headaches:
* Drinking lots of water so that you are well hydrated throughout the day.
* Taking regular breaks with mini stretches.
Rebound Headaches
If you find that you are increasingly relying on pain medications such a Panadol, Neurofen or other medications to keep the headaches away, be aware, they might be causing them in the first place.
Many people who experience headaches fall into a dangerous trap: You have a headache, so you take pain medication. But if you stay on it too long, you set yourself up for rebound headaches, which are headaches that occur when you try to withdraw from the medication.
Rebound headaches can occur from medications or from caffeine. If you feel like you need to keep taking painkillers or your daily fix of coffee to keep your headache away then you need to give your body a detox.
Try going 3-5 days without taking any medication or coffee. If you cannot do this, you may need to come up with a withdrawal plan to slowly wean yourself off the drugs and stop you body’s dependency on the pills or caffeine.
Cervicogenic Headaches
Your neck is called your cervical spine and sometimes neck pain moves upwards and causes the pain in your neck to develop into a headache. Pain can come from weakness or spasms of the neck muscles.
Strengthening and stretching your neck and upper back muscles daily by doing simple stretches or exercise can reduce the pain by easing the stress and tension stored in your muscles.
Headaches can also be caused from pain that is referred upwards from the small joints in the neck called facet joints. This occurs when the facet joints in our neck get locked up from being in the same posture or position and causes pain that travels up our neck and into our heads.
Exercise, as well as chiropractic adjustments create movement and lubrication in these small joints and can be very successful in reducing the pain.
Regular exercise also means that you can have fewer regular headaches. It helps relieve stress and increases the levels of painkilling endorphins. Yoga, stretching and meditation also help to reduce tension and thus relax the chemical imbalances that can cause headaches. Remember to always keep well hydrated as dehydration is another leading cause of headaches.
While you can treat your headaches with pain medication, the better course of action is to find the cause and stop them from occurring in the first place. Chiropractic care is a natural and extremely effective way to help combat all these types of headaches.
We can help you reduce the stress on your body and reduce pain as well as giving you exercise and nutritional support to help you live life without the painful headaches.
For more information or for an appointment, please call 09 5262100.
- Adeela Afiz is a final-year intern with the New Zealand College of Chiropractic