Headache cures, there’s always an alternative to painkillers

Nearly everyone suffers from headaches at some point. Experts say if headaches persist, rather than resorting to everyday use of painkillers, it is important to find out why, identify and avoid triggers and treat its specific underlying causes, reports Sade Oguntola.

We all experience headaches from time to time and taking a medicine is one of the options to relieve it. It is not surprising that in response to modern lifestyles many people develop headaches from attempts to meet work deadlines.

Headaches can be really painful and debilitating, and so many people resort to taking painkillers. They are easily available: no prescription by a medical doctor is necessary to obtain them and they are cheap. Unfortunately, many people don’t think that painkiller may be a real killer. 

 

Painkillers are often habit-forming and lead to dangerous heart diseases and ulcers. Moreover, some of them, particularly ibuprofen, can, when taken for too long, cause the very symptom that they are intended to relieve, namely headache.

 Guidelines published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) warned that painkillers such as paracetamol and aspirin may exacerbate rather than cure the problem. So, it was suggested that headache prevention is the best option. 

Are painkillers really cures for headache? How do pain killers work? Painkillers can’t be considered as a cure for headaches. They block the pain receptors that are giving the brain the message that there is a problem. Painkillers are not addressing the problem of where the headache is really coming from.

The NICE study highlighted the importance of listening to the body to find the cause of continual headache, not just resorting to taking painkillers to deal with the problem.  

The continual headache begins with taking the painkiller for tension headaches or migraines, which usually works. But some people, when their headaches are getting increasingly worse, take more medication which makes their pain even worse.

Dr Mayowa Owolabi, a consultant neurologist, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Oyo State said alternative options to painkillers was dependent on the cause of the headache. 

According to him, where it is a migraine, the individual needs to identify what triggers the attack and avoid such a trigger as much as possible to reduce the frequency and severity of the headache.

“Sometimes the headache is due to stress; sometimes it occurs around the menstrual period and sometimes it is food induced. Things like chocolate and citrus-containing foods precipitate migraine attacks in some individuals.  So persons with migraine attack should really study the type of foods or conditions that predispose them to migraine.

Dr Owolabi said that for some individuals that experience migraine headache, merely avoiding conditions that precipitate the attack without using medications can reduce the frequency and intensity of attacks.

No doubt there are different types of headaches. There is a group of headaches called secondary headaches. Among secondary headaches are those headaches that arise from substance abuse and headache medications.

Dr Owolabi stated that using painkillers for longer period of times, might also cause headache, the reason why patients who have headaches should see a doctor, preferably a neurologist.

According to him, a neurologist will prescribe appropriate painkiller and stipulate its duration of use in order to prevent overdose. Overdose and prolonged usage of painkillers may on their own be the cause of headache and when such occurs, it would require warning the patient off the painkillers before there is relief to the pain.

Moreover, Dr Owolabi said where it is tension-type headache, which is usually due to anxiety or stress, the person’s manner of dealing with stress would need evaluation to the ache in the head.

Tension-type headache usually has to do with how the individual manages its day-to-day activities; pressure at work, home and so on. “Even without painkillers, once the conditions that cause stress are handled, the pain goes, “he stated.

Nevertheless, the expert said alternative medicinal practices such as biofeedback, yoga and relaxation techniques can also help individuals with tension-type headaches to curtail stress, thus ensuring a relief to their pain.

Still, where it is a secondary headache due to other problems like malaria, he declared that once the malaria fever is treated, the headache will go. 

Meanwhile, headaches  can also be caused by new medication. Blood pressure-lowering drugs are common culprits.

Also other causes of headaches include caffeine overload and dehydration. A lack of water affects the supply of blood and oxygen and this is what the body shows as dehydration headache.

Mrs Helen Oduntan, Chairperson, Oyo State Lady Pharmacists, while declaring that painkillers was one of the drugs mostly abused in Nigeria, stated that often times people do not follow the instructions on painkillers which emphasise that they should be used when necessary.

According to Mrs Oduntan, “most people keep painkillers at home. So when they are feeling some discomfort, they resort to taking these medicines. Even for pains that they could actually put up with or require that they merely take time out to rest, they take painkillers.”

“Individuals need to find ways to relieve their pains. For those whose pains are due to stress, mere taking out time to rest rather than medicines is all that is required. 

She stated that many medical problems such as hypertension, constipation, upcoming fever could be underlying causes of what many people resort to treat daily with painkillers.