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 Migraines 

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PAIN - a complex experience consisting of a physiological or bodily response to a noxious stimulus followed by an affective or emotional response to that event.

Pain is a warning mechanism that helps to protect an organism by influencing it to withdraw from harmful stimuli; it is primarily associated with injury, or the threat of injury, to bodily tissues.

Because it has an affective as well as a sensory component, pain is subjective and difficult to quantify. Although the neuro-anatomic basis for pain reception develops in the foetus, individual pain responses are learned in early childhood and are affected by social, cultural, psychological, cognitive, and genetic factors, among others. This accounts for the apparent difference in pain tolerance among people. Athletes may be able to withstand or ignore pain while engaged in a sport, and certain religious practices require participants to endure pain that seems intolerable to most people. The perception of pain may be exacerbated by non physical factors such as anxiety, and some pain has no physical cause whatsoever.

An important function of pain is to alert the body to potential damage - nociception. The pain sensation, however, is only one part of the nociceptive response, which can include a rise in blood pressure, an increase in heart rate, and a reflexive withdrawal from the noxious stimulus. Acute pain can arise from breaking a bone or touching a hot surface. Two phases are perceived in acute pain: an immediate, intense feeling of short duration, sometimes described as a sharp, pricking sensation, followed by a dull, throbbing sensation. Chronic pain, which is often associated with pathological conditions such as cancer or arthritis, is more difficult to locate and treat. If pain cannot be alleviated, psychological factors such as depression and anxiety can intensify the condition, complicating an already challenging treatment situation.

HEADACHE - The Headache is or are pains in various parts of the head. Headaches affect nearly everyone at some time in their life, and regular headaches occur in approximately 10 percent of the population. Headaches vary widely in their intensity and in the seriousness of the underlying conditions that cause them. Most headaches occur because specific pain-sensitive structures in or around the head are over stimulated or damaged. Some of these structures are inside the skull, or intra-cranial; the remainder are in the tissues surrounding or covering the skull, or extra-cranial.

An intra-cranial headache results from the dilation of arterial blood vessels at the base of the brain caused by a temporary increase in blood supply. An intra-cranial headache may result as a consequence of a fever, a hangover, or a severe and sudden attack of high blood pressure. An inflammation or hemorrhage affecting the arteries and their adjacent meningeal tissues - as during meningitis or a cerebral hemorrhage,  can similarly cause an intra-cranial headache. One can also occur if a tumor displaces tissues inside the skull. Intra-cranial headaches often begin abruptly; they usually occur on awaking, or at night, and pain usually changes with a change in posture. Intra-cranial causes of headache almost always produce associated abnormalities that a physician can detect by physical examination or laboratory tests.

Extra-cranial headaches may be caused by dilation and distension of the extra-cranial arteries that supply the surface tissues of the head or sustained contraction of the skeletal muscles of the face, scalp, and neck. Excess fatigue, neck problems, and eyestrain can all cause extra-cranial headaches.

Headaches has been blighting humankind for perhaps many thousands of years. It is only recently that we have discovered the variety of causes, and the cures and remedies. 

The father of modern medicine was Hippocrates, who lived sometime between 460 B.C.,   and 377 B.C.

Aspirin - Hippocrates left historical records of pain relief treatments, including the use of powder made from the bark and leaves of the willow tree to help heal headaches, pains and fevers.

Today, aspirin holds the title of being the most widely used drug, one that is no longer solely used as a pain reliever and as a fever reducer. Physicians have shown aspirin to be effective in combating arthritis pain, in reducing the risk of heart disease, of death following a heart attack, of cancer, if taken two times weekly, and of developing pre-eclampsia during pregnancy. It is doubtful that aspirin will ever again be lost to the annals of history.

Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist, produced a stable form of acetylsalicylic acid, more commonly known as aspirin, in 1897. Hoffmann, was searching for something to relieve his father's arthritis. He studied French chemist named Charles Gergardt's experiments and "rediscovered" acetylsalicylic acid--or aspirin, as we now know it.

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Headaches remain one of the most persistent but disregarded maladies we all suffer with; they can be so complex that doctors tend to casually dismiss them in some hope that the pain will go on its own, not knowing the real cause. Perhaps at anyone time, NOW - over 20% of us could be suffering some kind of head pain.

But there are some great pain-killers around and whilst they may not cure the underlying cause, they do take the head pain and suffering away. This may be good, at first, but if you are just masking a a bigger problem, it is far from good. Take the person with a cracked bone in his foot, he might stave of too much suffering with a good pain-killer, but really he should go to the hospital to see about the fracture.

Also, many such cases lead to an addiction to pain-killers; the body, like with many drugs, become dependent on them and more and more need to be taken, to cure the pains.

Such is this problem, that there in an incalculable cost to our economy, by lost work-days. Notwithstanding, the physical and emotional cost, to long term sufferers. We all get headaches at some point in our lives, and in the main it happens once in a while, and it is either just a small inconvenient pain, or it is a thumping great throbbing, that can bring you to your knees. 

But to many people, for many reasons some of us get headaches of varying degrees all the time, think of the worst headache you have ever had and then consider having that every day of your life. It is enough to give you a headache.

But what ever category you would put yourself in, the first step, with or without medical help,  is to find out the primary cause of these head pains. The cause may be fundamental or indeed in can be some quite obscure reason, that only a series of eliminations may find.

In many cases the resultant symptom of many bodily problems, is a headache.

The head pains could be due to anxiety, stress and or depression. Due to school or work, eyestrain, high blood pressure, spinal problems, allergies, sensitivity to certain drugs or things you have eaten, or not eaten. It could be due to menstruation, needing to go to the toilet, or because you have not cleaned your teeth properly.

Whatever, it is whilst a young person may not be able to determine what is causing their pains, an adult should start to fathom out the reasons why. It is your best interests to find the underlying cause or causes, in order to live a better standard of life.

There are four major varieties of headache, each with its own type and severity of pain, temporal relationship, site and pattern of radiation, nature of aggravating or relieving factors, and associated symptoms.

Vascular Headaches - Vascular headaches include migraines and its variants as well as headaches due to abnormal stretching of the arterial walls in the cranium as a result of vessel-wall disease.

Migraine Headaches are extremely painful recurring headaches that are sometimes accompanied by nausea and vomiting; most migraine sufferers have a family history of the disorder. The pain is typically severe, throbbing or pounding, felt on one or both sides of the head, and aggravated by activity, noise, or bright lights. Visual phenomena such as zigzag lights may precede the onset of pain. Visual loss, weakness of a limb or of one side of the body, speech disturbances, or confusion may also accompany and outlast the headache. In a variant called cluster headache, severe pain is felt in and around one eye that lasts approximately an hour and frequently wakes the patient in the early morning. Such attacks occur about 10 to 20 times a month, with months of no symptoms until the next cluster begins. In the elderly, brief episodes of brain dysfunction resembling small strokes may occur, apparently caused by arterial spasm during migraines.

Foods such as cheese, chocolate, alcohol, and those containing nitrite or monosodium glutamate are the most frequent causes of migraines. Other causes include excessive or deficient sleep, stress, oral contraceptives, and menstruation. Medications such as ergotamine, antiemetic agents, and pain-relieving agents or even oxygen may be necessary to treat acute attacks. Preventive medications include tricyclics, adrenergic blocking agents, and lithium.

There are various types of head pains that have been given titles. A Head ache can be just a pain in the head, but it can also be much more. Whilst many pains could be interrelated, they can be caused by a myriad of reasons. Try to consider what the reason might be, when you attempt to self-diagnose, and this might help you find a reason, and a cure for your pain.

Allergy Headaches

Caffeine Headaches

Chemical Induced Headaches

Cluster Headaches

Eye Stain Headaches

Exertion Headaches

Fasting Headaches

Glaucoma Headaches

Hangover Headaches

Hypertension Headaches

Menstrual Headaches

Migraine Headaches - Common

Migraine Headaches - Classic

Nicotine Headaches

Secondary Headaches

Sexual Headaches

Sinus Headaches

Tension Headaches

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