Complete Thread on headache – Types, Triggers and Curative Remedies.

Though a minor ailment, headache has quite a potential to impact one’s physical and mental state. It is so common that everyone, from a seven-year-old child to an eighty-year-old person, experiences it. Headache disrupts your focus & concentration on any task you are performing. It derails you from functioning normally and in certain cases, headache can cause you to give up on doing any work because of its severity.

‘In headaches and in worry, vaguely life leaks away, and time will have its fancy to-morrow or to-day’.

W.H. Auden

Before discussing the natural remedies for relieving headache, it is necessary to have knowledge about the types of headache and what triggers it in the first place, because the severity of headache depends on its root cause.

To broadly classify the headache, it is mainly of 2 types-

1. Primary headache,
2. Secondary headache.

What is Secondary headache?

• Of the 2 major types, secondary headaches are the more painful type and are also called ‘red flag’ headaches.
• Secondary Headaches are the result of serious diseases and underlying issues with health.
• They are caused by other conditions with triggers ranging from dehydration to caffeine withdrawal, to head and neck injury to heart diseases.
• In dehydration headache, the frontal lobe of brain actually shrinks away from the skull
• Doctors have classified over 150 diagnosable types, all with different potential causes, symptoms and treatments.

This type has warning symptoms and signs, some of which include-

• Systemic symptoms or lesions- cancer.
• Neurological symptoms or abnormal signs.
• Onset is new (age > 40) or sudden change is observed.
• Other associated conditions or features.
• Previous headache history with headache progression or change in attack character
• Abnormal symptoms like Inter-cranial haemorrhage

What is Primary headache?

Primary headache is the common type and account for 50% of reported cases. The causes for these are still not known well to the scientists.

5 Types of Primary headaches and what each type is telling you about your health?

1. Tension headache:

This is more of muscular headache and the most common subtype. It is bilateral type which implies that it is experienced on both the sides of head, majorly around the forehead. The triggers include- Muscle strain, hunger, depression, stress.

Symptoms- Dull band like pain across the forehead, neck, back of the head.

Duration- The duration varies and has usually no other accompanying symptoms.

2. Migraine headache:

This type of headache is the recurring type and can last from hours to days. Its triggers include- Certain foods or drink, hormonal changes, sensory stimuli, environmental changes.

Symptoms- These begin as one sided pain in the head that is more severe in temple, eye or back of the head. It comes and goes and the location is mainly unilateral, that is on one side. The range of pain is moderate to severe in most of the cases. It is accompanied with symptoms like nausea, photophobia, aura, phono phobia.

Duration- 4 to 72 hours in usual situations.

3. Sinus headache:

It is associated with sinusitis.

Symptoms- Runny nose, fullness of ear, fever, face swelling, pain in the cheek bones, forehead, bridge of nose, Irritation of sinuses

4. Cluster headache:

These are group of idiopathic, intensely painful, rapid fire headache.

Symptoms- It is always unilateral and the pain is intense behind, around or near one eye. This is the least common headache of all the types but is the most severe one. Eye orbit area experiences excruciating impact. Pain begins quickly and is deep.

Duration- 30 minutes to 3 hours.

5. Hormonal headache:

This type shares its link with the hormones. Change in hormonal levels are responsible for this headache. Low oestrogen concentration at the beginning of the menstrual cycle or withdrawal of hormone therapy, are some reasons which trigger hormonal headache.

4 Home Remedies For Curing Headache Instantly-

The best part about using home remedies is that they are completely natural and involve no use of chemical medicines.

1. How Ginger heals the pain in head?

• It lessens inflammation of the veins in the head, subsequently reducing the pain.
• You can use ginger in the form of tea or you can make ginger lemon drops and drink it.
• Yet another way to use ginger is to apply the paste made by mixing ginger powder and water and applying the same on the brows for instant relief.

2. The aromatic properties of lavender oil for headache-

• Taking in the aroma of lavender is an excellent solution for healing headaches.
• In order to derive this benefit, put few drops of lavender oil on a tissue paper and breathe it in.
• You can also go for steam with lavender oil by making addition of some drops of this oil in hot water and then breathing in.
• For sinus headache, try massaging with peppermint oil. The best way to utilize this oil is by mixing it with jojoba oil or baby oil because peppermint oil is very concentrated. Rub this on your temples in small circular motion working towards your brow bone and sinuses. The methanol in peppermint oil heals the sinus headache. Peppermint opens obstructed veins that causes migraine. You can also make tea out of peppermint leaves but soaking them in warm water for sometime. Before consuming, you can add honey to it for sweetness.

3. Role Clove plays in curing headache-

• Cloves can be used to relive headache because of their cooling and healing properties.
• Simply, beat few cloves and place them in a spotless cloth and breathe in the aroma of cloves until you get the relief.
• You can also massage your temples and the area of pain with clove oil.

4. How Acupressure benefits curing headache?

• Acupressure is a kind of massage, the impact of which has been confirmed by numerous scientific research and studies. It does not require special medical knowledge and can be practiced by anyone by following few, simple steps. Massaging the points with a light press or circular movements usually relieves the headache during the massage or 5-10 minutes after it.

Before starting Acupressure, take a comfortable position and relax completely and follow these steps.

1. Acupressure point on the hand: –

• Find the point where the bone of your index finger is attached to the bone of your thumb.
• Now apply firm pressure at this point and give it a small circular motion for 3 minutes.
• It helps to heal the symptoms of stress, facial pain, headache, toothache and neck pain.

2. Massage on the area between your brows. This point is called the third eye point and applying pressure on it mitigates headache.

3. An acupressure point is located at the base of inner edge of eyebrows.

• Massaging this point relives one of runny nose in addition to the headache.
• It improves visual acuity as well.
• This massage is most useful for curing sinus headache and migraine.

4. Put your fingers on the two points which are on the side of nostrils, in line with the eyes. Massaging this point in the clockwise manner mitigates headache, toothache and stress.

5. Massage the points, behind the head precisely towards the middle part of the head and beginning of the spine. Doing so alleviates the symptoms of nasal congestion and pain in the eyes and ear, severe headache and migraine.

6. Press the point above your ear, where the hairline starts and massage it well.

7. Put slight pressure on the area that is halfway between the rotator cuff and vertebrae column (on the back). Apply downward pressure with your fingers. Massage and hold for few seconds. It relives neck stiffness, shoulder tension and headache.

8. Find the groove between the 4th and the 5th knuckle of your hand and apply deep pressure for 4-5 seconds. This pressure point exercise is useful to cure temporal headaches, shoulder and neck tension, upper back pain.

2 Efficacious exercises to relieve headache-

1. The pencil method-

When you are stressed out, you automatically strain the muscle from jaw to the ear, which leads to headache. To release this stress, place the pencil between your mouth, without biting down. This practice forces your jaw muscles to relax, relieving you of the headache.

2. Stretching-

Stretching your neck, head and back aids to soothe the pain of headache. For this purpose, move your jaw upward and downward followed up with left and right. After that, rotate the neck in clockwise and anticlockwise direction.

So, next time your head throbs with ache, Ditch those pain killers and try these natural curative remedies to reduce the pain within minutes.