Back to Headaches in General

I suffer from the following signs and/or symptoms –
- Acute headaches: Seen in children, these are headaches that occur suddenly and for the first time and have symptoms that subside after a relatively short period of time. Acute headaches most commonly result in a visit to the pediatrician's office and/or the emergency room. If there are no neurological signs or symptoms, the most common cause for acute headaches in children and adolescents is a respiratory or sinus infection.
-Hormone headaches: Headaches in women are often associated with changing hormone levels that occur during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. Chemically induced hormone changes, such as with birth control pills, also trigger headaches in some women.
-Chronic progressive headaches: Also called traction or inflammatory headaches, chronic progressive headaches get worse and happen more often over time. These are the least common type of headache, accounting for less than 5% of all headaches in adults and less than 2% of all headaches in kids. Chronic progressive headaches may be the result of an illness or disorder of the brain or skull.
-Poor Posture: There are countless causes of headaches, but one that is often overlooked is posture. Take a minute to think about how you sit and stand. Now consider how your body feels when you are lying down. Do you experience aches or discomfort around your neck and back? Are there certain positions that seem to cause tension and trigger headaches for you? Poor posture can result in muscle tension within and around the shoulder and neck joints and muscles. It can also exacerbate headache pain stemming from other causes. Some people find that during stressful situations, posture suffers and breathing patterns may become shallow and tensed. For this reason, it can be helpful to focus on correct posture alongside deep breathing. This will allow you to alleviate physical discomfort from a hunched over posture, for example, while also utilising deep breathing exercises to ease the bodily tension that can occur from anxiety and stress.
-Consider How You Sit and Stand: It makes sense to maintain good posture by paying attention to the way you move your body. Poor posture can result in painful and chronic tension in your neck and back, leaving your muscles tensed and possibly triggering headaches. If you do find that your headaches are related to tension from poor posture, try to develop an awareness of how you hold your body during daily activities and in particular, how your sit and stand. Some of the ways you can encourage and maintain proper posture are:

-Avoid sitting or standing in one position for prolonged periods of time.
-Sit up straight and use any cushions or back supports for your lower back as needed.
-Consider a special headset if you spend a lot of time on the phone. Holding a telephone between your shoulder and head, especially for prolonged periods, can strain muscles and result in sharp tension headaches.
-Adjust computer screens so that your neck is not strained.
-When lifting anything, especially if it is quite heavy, lift with your arms and legs, not your back.

-Mind Your Breathing: Breathing is obviously necessary for existence, yet many of us tend to take shallow, labored breaths. Rarely do most people breathe deeply on a regular basis, but by consciously focusing on breathing and replacing superficial breathing with deeper breaths, you can better oxygenate your body, ease tension and help headache pain. The effects of deep breathing can be quite powerful and it may feel unusual at first, as it is very different from the shallow superficial breathing most people perform. Deep, slower breaths relax the nervous system and provide wonderful physical and emotional benefits for tension, which can really benefit headache pain management. It's also important to learn deep breathing as it assists in releasing tension. Try taking a slow deep breath in to a count of three, and focus on any issues in your life that are stressful and may be triggering headaches and muscle discomfort. Then, release very slowly to another count of three, and imagine your worries dissolving and releasing with your breath. The mind can be a powerful tool when used with deep breathing and may help alleviate headaches triggered by stress.
-Tension headaches: Also called chronic daily headaches or chronic non-progressive headaches, tension headaches are the most common type of headaches among adults and adolescents. These muscle contraction headaches cause mild to moderate pain and come and go over a prolonged period of time. Muscular tension - Skeletal muscles are made up of muscle fibers, bundled together. Each fiber can contract or relax on demand. All the fibers contract together to shorten a muscle. The command to contract or relax is given by the brain and relayed to the muscle by nerves. When we are under stress, we commonly tense the muscles of the shoulders, upper back, neck and face. This can lead to tension headache.
-Migraines: The exact causes of migraines are unknown, although they are related to blood vessel contractions and other changes in the brain as well as inherited abnormalities in certain areas of the brain. Migraine pain is moderate to severe, often described as pounding, throbbing pain. They can last from 4 hours to 3 days and usually occur 1 to 4 times per month. Migraines are associated with symptoms such as light sensitivity; noise or odors; nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite; and stomach upset or abdominal pain. When a child is having a migraine they often look pale, feel dizzy, have blurred vision, fever, stomach upset, in addition to having the above listed symptoms. A small percentage of pediatric migraines include recurrent (cyclic) gastrointestinal symptoms, in which vomiting is most common. Cyclic vomiting means that the symptoms occur on a regular basis -- about once a month. These types of migraines are sometimes called abdominal migraines.
-Mixed headache syndrome: Also called transformed migraines, this is a combination of migraine and tension headaches. Both adults and children experience this type of headache.
-Cluster headaches: The least common, although the most severe, type of primary headache, the pain of a cluster headache is intense and may be described as having a burning or piercing quality that is throbbing or constant. The pain is so severe that most cluster headache sufferers cannot sit still and will often pace during an attack. The pain is located behind one eye or in the eye region, without changing sides. The term "cluster headache" refers to headaches that have a characteristic grouping of attacks. Cluster headaches occur one to three times per day during a cluster period, which may last 2 weeks to 3 months. The headaches may disappear completely (go into "remission") for months or years, only to recur.
-Sinus headaches: cause pain in the front of your head and face. They are due to inflammation in the sinus passages that lie behind the cheeks, nose, and eyes. The pain tends to be worse when you bend forward and when you first wake up in the morning. Postnasal drip, sore throat, and nasal discharge usually occur with these headaches. Headaches may occur if you have a cold, the flu, fever, or premenstrual syndrome.

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