Keep headache at bay

Dr Shamsher Dwivedee, Chairman, Institute of Neurosciences, gives an insight on various types of headaches and what preventive measures should be taken to control them

Headache is one the common symptoms which every human being experience at sometime in their life. Headache generates a lot of anxiety because of associated fear of diseases like brain tumour. One must know the red flags for a sinister headache, which are as follows:-

• Severe headache at onset, which progresses rapidly
• Accompanied fever, irrelevant talk, drowsiness, double vision, recurrent projectile vomiting, slurring of speech, weakness in any limb or difficulty in walking
• Any new character of headache which was always existing for years,onset of headache after age of 45

Most of the chronic headaches are not caused by life endangering diseases, but they affect the quality of life. It can lead to depression and have a negative impact on the personal and professional life. Migraine and tension-type headache constitute the bulk of headache patients in a neurology clinic. Tension-type headache is associated with a gripping sensation or heaviness anywhere in head, nape of neck and shoulders. It is commonly associated with depression and anxiety. Tension type headache tends to persist for longer periods of time. Migraine on the other hand appears like a bolt from the blue with or without any warning symptoms like blurring of vision, tingling, giddiness etc. and is associated with the throbbing headache anywhere in head, nausea, vomiting, dislike for light and sound. They tend to happen as episodes. It is when such migrainous episodes happen more than once a week, do we introduce migraine preventive medication or else we treat the episodes with suitable pain killer.

One has to rule out toothache, jaw joint diseases, ear infections, cervical spine diseases, bleed inside brain, brain infection, excessive use of substances and medications particularly pain killers and alcohol etc. These are known as secondary headaches. Certain lifestyle modifications are helpful to prevent and reducing headaches:

Exercise, relaxation, meditation and quiet environment helps in tension-type headache as well as migraine.

Professionals who work for long hours on desk jobs should take intermittent breaks for 10-15 minutes and gently move their neck and shoulders to reduce spasm.

Patients suffering from migraine should avoid exposure to bright sunlight,erratic sleep timing, prolonged fasting or delayed meals, cheese, chocolate Chinese food too much of tea, coffee and cola drinks, preserved food and alcohol.

Strong odours as well as direct exposure of head and face to cold or hot can also trigger or increase headache frequency. Understand your headache, seek a neurophysicians help and improve your quality of life.