Heading Off the Hurt.(taking care of headaches)

Try these techniques and supplements to help ease headache pain

Science today can tell us much more about the causes of headaches and how to head them off before they begin. According to Dr. Roger Cady, director of the Headache Care Center in Springfield, Mo., there have been recent changes in the understanding of headaches, especially in regard to migraine, the most debilitating form that can last from hours to days.

For example, tension headaches (the intermittent, somewhat painful but less debilitating variety) and migraine headaches were once considered two very different forms. But that's changing, says Cady.

"We're learning that migraine and tension headaches may have some very common biological mechanisms," he points out. "People who live with migraines can have tension headaches, as well as others that fall in between the two varieties." In other words, these forms may correspond to different points on a continuum.

According to Cady, people who suffer from migraine and tension headaches tend to have nervous systems that are particularly sensitive to the environment. Changes in such a person's internal environment (such as hormone levels) or in the external environment (light, sound or diet) can trigger headaches. Many environmental factors that a person is exposed to may overload different parts of the nervous system, determining whether the resulting pain is muscular (as in tension headaches) or vascular (as in migraines).

When environmental changes occur, levels of neurotransmitters in the brain can also fluctuate. One of these, serotonin, plays a protective role by preventing abnormal blood vessel dilation, and it also blocks inflammatory chemicals and diminishes pain in the brain. When serotonin levels dip, blood vessels dilate more than normal, irritating the surrounding nerves, and pain is exaggerated; in other words, you get a headache.

While Cady concedes that sufferers in the throes of a migraine usually need medication to stop the pain, he emphasizes that it's often possible to avoid a headache before it exacerbates to a severe one that can interfere with a person's ability to work, play and live normally. That's good news, considering that many of the prescription drugs prescribed for headache relief, including non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), have side effects.