Headache Syndromes Not Many People Know About

Did you know that headaches aren’t only due to stress? Yes, it is one of the main culprits but it is not the only one. So whether you get headaches pretty much on a daily basis or only from time to time, read further. It may surprise you that not that there are other causes of headache but also that one of these may ring a bell and is actually the cause of yours. You may even start to figure out a better way to relieve it or manage it once you learn what’s causing your headache attacks. Or you can consult a professional to help you with that too.

Ice Cream Headache

Drinking or eating something cold very quickly can cause what we call brain freeze which basically is headache due to the cold. Therefore, it’s actually not the ice cream itself that’s causing the pain. You can still enjoy it, just eat it slowly no matter how much you love it or have been craving for it for days!

Headaches In The Air

Does flying give you a headache? A study presented at the 2011 International Headache Society annual meeting reported on the phenomenon of “airplane travel headache” in 63 people, two-thirds of whom were men. Their headaches, which involved severe pain, usually occurred during landing and typically lasted for about 20 minutes. Further out in the atmosphere, astronaut surveys show that some space travelers have terrible headaches in space even if they’re mostly headache-free here on Earth. “They’re more common during ascent and being out in space than during descent,” says Monteith. Space travel headaches are hard to study because so few people go into space, but Monteith says they might be related to microgravity, the spaceship’s artificial gravity, which could cause an imbalance in the body and lead to headache.

Hangover Headache

Whether you’re a habitual drinker or not, you’re probably aware of how much of a pain hungover can be.  But you don’t even have to be that drunk or have a hungover to experience the headache from alcoholic drinks. Since alcohol in any drink causes increased blood flow to your brain and can also result in dehydration, both of which might be headache triggers.

Rebound Headache

Rebound headaches can happen when you take fast-acting pain relief medications, like opiates or some migraine medications, on a regular basis. The signal receptors in your nervous system change over time if you take fast-acting analgesics every time you get a headache. These changes cause you to need higher doses of pain medications for relief and make you more likely to suffer from headache pain as the medication wears off. There isn’t a lot to be done about this except to take a break from the medication. This is because it has been found through brain imaging studies that those changes get reversed by stopping the acute medication.

Arthritis Headache

An arthritis headache, also known as a cervicogenic headache, is headache pain behind the eye that’s coming from the nerves in the neck. It’s thought to be caused by arthritis in the neck, but there could also be more than just that. A lot of migraine patients often have neck pain which is due to loss of cervical curve that has been becoming normal due to the rise of gadgets and deskbound jobs. Without this normal curve, most often the balance of the weight of the head is tilted forward and creates increased wear and tear on the discs and the bones themselves. This eventually leads to bony spurs that we then call spine arthritis which of course leads to neck pain too. This is why it is safe to assume that many patients that have cervicogenic [arthritis] headache may actually have migraine. So if you’re experiencing this type of headache, it’s not enough to stop the pain through your usual pain medication or management treatment. you’ll probably have to do a combination of treatments that will treat neck pain, restore a healthy neck curve and the migraine as well.

Caffeine-Withdrawal Headache

The high or energy boost that coffee can give you can also cause headaches, especially after the effect of the caffeine has worn off. But this depends on how often you drink it. Moderate consumption may help relieve pain since it gives that sense of alertness. But daily intake, especially if you have more than a cup in a day, makes your brain develop a tolerance for it. So the effectiveness becomes weaker and your body expect an additional dose right away which when unmet the withdrawal syndrome which includes headaches kicks in.

Hot Dog Headache

Nitrites used as preservatives in hot dogs, bacon, and lunch meats may dilate blood vessels and trigger headaches after eating in some people. There may not be a solid study that can back this up but we know that too much processed foods in your body is not good because of all the preservatives added in them. If you can’t eliminate them in your diet altogether, you should at least limit your consumption of them.

Headaches are often brushed off since we tend to just power through them. But frequent headaches may not only be a slight discomfort but can also be completely a nuisance. So the less you experience them, the better not just for you but for everyone else. The problem is, people hardly ever seek medical attention for headaches unless they become incapacitated with it. As a result it can be hard to manage. What’s even worse is that if your headache starts to lasts longer, your pain have gone from tolerable to debilitating (you start missing work because of it), it comes with other symptoms like nausea and vomiting, pills that you take to relieve it no longer works, time to consider that it may no longer be a simple headache but a migraine. Long term solution may take some time before you figure out what works for you.

There are some therapies that proved to have helped ease the pain, it’s just important to keep looking for a treatment that works best for you. But probably the safest, surest way to migraine relief is to seek chiropractic care because it’s a great alternative treatment that doesn’t involve drugs or surgery to eliminate the pain but is effective in improving your overall health.

Chiropractic therapy, like acupuncture, is also an alternative, natural, pharmaceutical-free form of treatment for a variety of complaints, conditions, and injuries. While they both address pain reduction, they do it in different angles that complement each other. In chiropractic, pain is often treated through spinal manipulation, which is intended to correct the alignment of the skeletal system and joints. If your headaches are coming from tight muscles or subluxation around your neck area, which is often the case, then spinal manipulation is a great way to deal with it. Correcting physical misalignments in the body can not only help to treat conditions that contribute to pain, but can also improve the circulation of blood and the communication of the nervous system throughout the body. Essentially, chiropractic addresses the “mechanical” malfunctions of the muscles and skeleton, while acupuncture improves the chemical, nervous, and neurological processes.