Fighting Headache Pain: One Man's Real Suggestions

I have suffered from chronic headaches for over five years now, and I have read all the research. Unfortunately, like most doctors will tell you, trying to completely understand any kind of headaches is near impossible. Essentially, they have this mysterious cloak around them, with most people having little clue as to why they happen.

Thus, treating them consistently is just plain hard.

My headaches started from stress, but they snowballed into a more chronic scenario. Now, years later, my body has been conditioned to respond to nearly anything I do that is slightly out of the norm with a headache. This goes in conjunction with the headaches that pop up every so often and hang around, painfully so, for days and weeks on end.

Hard to say the least, yet it's my life, so I have to deal. And I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there suffering from the same pain and aggravation.

So, with this in mind, I'll offer you some ideas that help me manage these headaches. While I wish I could perfectly define them for you, as if I were the Mayo Clinic website or some other decorated practice, I simply cannot. Mine don't fall into a perfect category with delineated symptoms and causes, wrapped up by a standard set of possible treatments. I wish they did, but instead they jump categories and mix and match symptoms. They don't fit the mold, which is precisely why I had to learn to deal with them in my way, not just the ways suggested by doctors or websites.

Understand that these have worked for me, and that I am by no means an authority; just a regular guy who has serious headaches, probably just like you. Some suggestions you could find on any reputable website, and some come from my own trial and error of getting things right for my mind and body. Remember, headaches are odd beasts that tend to be entirely individual, so the "one size fits all" approach makes no sense, and applying it could cause more harm than good.

Therefore, my advice to you is to simply read the ideas below and think about how you suffer. Try some if they seem logical, and avoid the ones that seem unreasonable.

1. Avoid the internet: This may seem odd, as it is not a medication or activity, but it is remarkably valuable. When I first started to get the headaches, I searched every conceivable medical opinion online to self-diagnose the pain. Want to know what happened? Well, I convinced myself I either had Parkinson's or a brain tumor. How do you think that impacted the real reason, stress? Not so good. Consult your doctor and believe in his/her opinion. Seek good advice that has purpose, and not open-ended reading that lets your over-taxed mind run wild.

2. Go easy on the medication: I ingested everything, from Tylenol to dilaudid, from the weak over-the-counter pills to the heavy hospital-grade narcotic. Over time, I became a headache pain relief cocktail, with so much getting mixed that no one could tell what was helping and what was not. The over-the-counter drugs grew ineffective as I used them too often, and the heavy drugs had some absurd side effects that made life more troublesome. So, what is the answer? If you're going to go the medication route, do it one step at a time under doctor's supervision. See what helps, and let the two of you make the right decision.

3. Valium: Strange, I know, but this is the only drug that works for me. I got a small prescription to see if the muscle relaxation the drug offers would do the trick, and it certainly did. You have to be disciplined, as it has an addictive side to it, but if used in strict moderation and only when needed, a drug like this can take the edge off and curb the headaches before they exacerbate and become terribly painful. I take it when I can feel a big headache coming, or when I know the conditions in life are ripe for one to start. I think I used twenty pills in two and a half years.

4. One doctor in control: At the height of my pain, I visited the emergency room five times within a thirty-five day span. I also saw my regular doctor three or four times within that month. My head felt constant pain, and I wanted to try anything to make it go away. Yet a major problem happened: my doctor had a plan in place to see what would work, but the emergency room folks prescribed me other medications, ones they felt would help based on their diagnosis. In the end, I was all messed up. I got better when I let my doctor run everything. He ended up passing me onto a specialist, but he kept me consistent and got me better. Stick to one trusted voice.

5. Find patterns: Don't become obsessive, but a routine that your body can adjust to might help. I know that as soon as I defined my day a bit more than normal, I felt more predictable, and my headaches responded. While I tried to have regular bedtimes and wake-ups, the most influential decision I made was to eat at consistent times. Missing a meal is almost a surefire way to have a headaches start, so eating well at normal times each day makes my life easier.

6. Open communication: Struggling through the pain associated with headaches, especially chronic ones, can have a detrimental psychological effect. Once I finally realized this, I had to find a way to sort it all out. I found a few solid friends to confide in, and I told them about the problem and speculated about why they were happening, how they were impacting me, and what I thought I could do to make life better. Just letting someone else in took some of the psychological burden off of me, which, in turn, relieved some of the stress.

7. AM/PM Yoga: For quite a while I started my day with a twenty-minute yoga session, and then I ended my day with a restorative fifteen-minute session. The stretching and peacefulness associated with yoga gives you both mental and physical benefits. Plenty of people have said that yoga helps with headaches, and I can honestly agree.

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