Every month, do you always have those days when you feel like your head has been put in a vajra ring and someone is chanting a mantra – your head hurts in bursts, or you feel a pain in the top of your head from a burst of veins jumping up and down? Now, let’s start with the good news: medicine has come a long way in curing headaches over the years. At the same time, there’s not so good news: a university survey showed that doctors often misdiagnose headaches, which can lead to poor treatment. 50% of patients with cyclical migraines are misdiagnosed as having sinus headaches or tension-type headaches. Below, see which one you really belong to? 1. Tension headache? Symptoms: head numbness, dizziness, and no throbbing pain on the sides of the head. Tension headaches often last for hours, some even all day. If you have these symptoms every day, you may have chronic tension headaches. “The Culprit”: Medical experts have not been able to give a definite cause yet, but it is clear that stress is one of the culprits. Experts say, “People unconsciously clench their teeth and shrug their shoulders when they feel nervous. And these unconscious behaviors can trigger a headache.” In addition, studies show that repressed anger is the second cause. Anger stresses the body’s muscles while causing an imbalance in chemical levels in the brain, which triggers headaches. How to treat it: exercise three times a week, make sure you get regular and adequate sleep each night, increase your recreational life and learn recreational skills. These approaches have yielded satisfactory results in most female patients. Also, get outside more often for a change of air. When your boss gets on your nerves, you can certainly duck out for a while to avoid a head-on confrontation, and to allow yourself five minutes to take a walk and de-stress. Regarding medication, if this type of headache occurs only 1 to 2 times a month, you can go to the drugstore and buy some painkillers such as ibuprofen or tylenol; if the number of headaches per month is more, then you should go to the doctor. Because after adjusting the lifestyle still can not work, you must turn to the doctor, the doctor will give you a more specific, targeted treatment program. 2. Menstrual migraine? Symptoms: Cyclic migraine before, during and after the arrival of your “best friend” every month. Women are twice as likely to experience cyclic headaches during the first two days of their menstrual cycle. “Culprit: Before our monthly “best friend” visit, androgen levels in our bodies decrease, which leads to a decrease in serotonin levels in the brain. The decrease in these hormones in turn causes blood vessels to swell, which ultimately leads to the onset of headaches. How to treat: Take some NSAID decongestants (e.g. ibuprofen) a few days before your period and during your menstrual cycle, which will reduce the pain. If that doesn’t work, your doctor may prescribe triptan two days before your menstrual cycle (see Cyclical migraine). Ask your doctor if you need to take medication on days outside your menstrual cycle when you don’t have symptoms, or if you should “take it all” or switch to another medication. These approaches should help to reduce headaches by moderating the dramatic hormonal changes associated with PMS. 3. Rebound headaches? Symptoms: Need to take some broad-spectrum painkillers to deal with headaches, but even so is not very useful, headaches always “ghost”. The “culprit”: overdose of painkillers. Experts said: “A patient, the beginning of a few times a week to eat ibuprofen, each time two tablets to be able to deal with headaches. But then, he had to take it several times a day for it to work.” Why is that? It’s because an overdose of the drug leads to a decrease in serotonin levels, which increases the body’s sensitivity to pain. How to treat it: gradually reduce the amount of medication you take. A doctor once arranged such a drug withdrawal program for a patient: if the original 8 times a day to take Ixedrine (Excedrin), the second week will be changed to 6 times, the third week 4 times. Try it, and after three weeks the headache will be relieved. However, it must be known, so after three months of adjustment, the body’s serotonin levels can be free from the control of drugs, back to normal levels. 4. Sinus headache? Symptoms: When there is a vegetative nerve infection, cold or allergy symptoms, it will be accompanied by the appearance of forehead paroxysm. The “culprit”: infection of the vegetative nerves, or sinusitis (swelling of the vegetative nerves), which is associated with cold or allergies. How to treat: Get medical treatment. See your doctor for antibiotics, oral decongestants, or a steroid nasal spray that will “clear up” the swelling of the nerves. In this way, the headache will be “swept away”. 5. Beware of coffee’s “hidden hand” You may not want to hear it, but caffeine may indeed be the bad guy behind the headache that flips the switch. A recent study published in the journal Nature said that some chronic symptoms, headaches, largely related to excessive (average 3 to 4 cups per day) coffee consumption. The study says, “Caffeine itself does not cause headaches, but it is addictive. Once the body is unable to get the satisfaction on the caffeine stimulus, the blood vessels begin to spasm, which triggers a headache.” If you’re someone who suffers from headaches and loves to drink tons of coffee, isn’t it time to cut back on your coffee consumption? Go ahead, start drinking only two cups a day from now on and then slowly move away from it. 6. Periodic migraine? Symptoms: one or both sides of the head, jumping pain, pain appears for no reason, sometimes only lasts for an afternoon, sometimes it may be three days or not. Cyclic migraines are often hereditary and are associated with spasms of blood vessels in the brain, which then secrete chemicals that cause the blood vessels to swell and cause headaches. Most cyclic migraines occur in the morning. During a headache attack, the pain worsens when a person moves around a little. As a result, cyclic migraine attacks can be very difficult to live with. Many women who suffer from cyclic migraines think their headaches are not cyclic migraines because they don’t have those aura’s or they only have mild throbbing pains,” the expert said. But in fact, less than 20 percent of patients do have noticeable symptoms, while the rest may be mild.” “Culprits”: Not eating a staple diet, not getting enough sleep, and even specific foods such as cheese, chocolate, cured meats, and red wine can be “culprits”. Even rain or a sudden drop in temperature can make periodic migraines worse. 50% of these patients find that the change in weather does cause them headaches. How to treat it: Keep a log of headaches for a few weeks to help figure out what’s causing them. Doctors say, “It’s possible that if you sleep even just half an hour less, you’ll have a headache all day the next day.” Magnesium supplementation is effective in dealing with periodic migraines. Half of such patients have low magnesium levels. Magnesium, the mineral, inhibits blood vessel spasms. Some doctors prescribe medications for periodic migraines, such as trimethylbutane, for patients to take whenever their head hurts. This type of medicine mainly inhibits spasms and decongests blood vessels. And if the headache comes on fast and hard, you can use trimethylbutane nasal spray – trimethylbutane gets into the blood vessels more quickly and relieves the pain. If you get headaches two or three times a month and they are severe each time, you can suggest that your doctor prescribe Toltaic (Topamax), but it has to be taken every day for more effective symptom control. Studies have found that this drug works in 50% of patients. Tips 1, 30% to 50% of women are likely to be afflicted by chronic tension headaches; 2, 70% of headache sufferers have a family history of headaches, so if your mom had headaches, you’re likely to inherit them; 3, 97% of people who self-diagnose phytoneurologic headaches actually get cyclical migraines.