There cannot be many people who have not experienced a headache and yet, despite the fact that they are so common, their cause is something of a mystery. Further, although we frequently talk about a headache it is surprising how few people are aware that there are in fact a number of different types of headache.
Migraines for instance affect some 10% of Americans (in the region of 28 million individuals) and attack three times as many women as men. Yet, although such a large number of people suffer frequently from migraines, we still do not know what causes them. Naturally there are a number of theories, the most recent of which is that they are caused by the interaction of brain chemicals such as serotonin and the nerve cells of the brain, however we do not know for for sure that this is the cause.
Cluster headaches, which are much less common but also far more intense than migraines, affect approximately one person in every three hundred and tend to attack men much more than women. Once again however we only have a tentative idea about just what leads to the stabbing pain that is frequently felt behind one eye in these especially painful headaches. Some people suspect that the cause could be a defect in the hypothalamus but, so far, there is no firm evidence to support this theory.
The commonest type of headache is what we usually refer to as ordinary or tension-type headaches and again these are only partly understood. Here the list of possible causes is extremely long and includes everything from what we eat to the amount of stress we are under. Attempting to isolate a specific cause has proved to difficult as yet however and exactly what leads to the common everyday headache remains something of a mystery.
Perhaps the only saving grace is that there is a large number of medicines available to us to cope with the different types of headache and most of these are both effective and safe for most sufferers.
Migraines have long proved hard to treat and the ergot drugs once used in their treatment showed varying degrees of success. These drugs were then largely replaced by triptans which were more effective but which sadly carried several shortcomings. Nowadays however the second generation of triptan drugs are proving safe, show fewer drawbacks and are effective for most sufferers.
There has also been an increase in the use of preventive medications for migraines like beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, anti-seizure medications, anti-depressants and a variety of other drugs that are in common use for the treatment of other well known conditions. For many individuals these drugs will stop headaches from attacking at all, while in others they can lower the frequency with which headaches occur.
For common headaches over-the-counter drugs like paracetamol and aspirin (which have been around for over one hundred years) and newer drugs like ibuprofen provide effective and safe relief in the majority of cases. For people suffering from regular headaches though care needs to be taken because even the lowly aspirin can produce side effects if taken too frequently.
Even though there is still so much that we do not know about what causes really bad headaches the fact that we are able to treat them successfully is a comfort to the many sufferers and especially to the large number of people who are afflicted by often very incapacitating migrane headaches. Surprisingly enough however only about half of all migraine headache sufferers ever seek treatment and so there are literally millions of people today who are needlessly suffering in silence.
If you suffer from headaches and over-the-counter medicines such as paracetamol or aspirin do not work then, rather than sit and suffer in silence, call in to see your physician who will almost certainly be able to help.
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