How to identify and treat headaches effectively when they occur

  Headache is a common and frequent clinical disease, and the following types are common: Migraine|: It is a vascular dysfunction caused by periodic episodes of autonomic dysfunction, manifested as recurrent episodes of throbbing headache on one or both sides. Female patients are about 3-4 times more likely than males to suffer from migraine, which usually starts in adolescence, with a few cases occurring in childhood or after middle age. Severe attacks may be accompanied by vomiting, and a few patients may have visual, somatosensory and motor symptoms before or during the headache. In acute migraine attacks, analgesics alone are effective, such as acetaminophen and naproxen. When ineffective, ergot preparations or the 5-HT agonist treprostatin are usually effective.  Neurogenic headache: also known as functional headache, is extremely common in clinical practice. It is mostly seen in patients with neurological disorders, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and hypochondria, and is actually a headache symptom that accompanies neurological patients. This type of headache has a variable location or diffuse full headache, and the nature of the headache is diverse or ambiguous. Patients often suffer from dizziness, insomnia, memory loss, anxiety or depression. Antidepressants such as 5-hydroxytryptamine reuptake inhibitors such as fluoxetine and citalopram, and tranquilizers such as benzodiazepines can often be used to treat the primary headache with significant results.  Tension headache: It is a bilateral occipital or whole head constriction or pressure headache. It accounts for about 40% of headache patients and is the most common chronic clinical headache. It is a persistent head tightening pain or heavy pressure pain caused by heart tension, depression or anxiety. Anti-headache treatment is not effective for this disease, and antidepressants and tranquilizers can reduce the headache.  Cluster headache: also known as histamine headache, is a rare episodic severe headache around one side of the eye with repeated intensive attacks. It may be associated with hypothalamic dysfunction. It manifests as a brief, extremely intense unilateral persistent non-pulsatile headache, often striking suddenly at night after falling asleep without aura, or manifesting regular painful awakenings at night. The patient paces back and forth with unbearable severe pain, pounding his head with his fist or banging against the wall. Intensive attacks can be controlled by timely application of indomethacin and hormone therapy in the early stage of attack.  In the clinical treatment of headache, Western medicine treatment can relieve the symptoms but is prone to recurrence, while Chinese medicine treatment has accumulated rich experience and can often achieve the purpose of curing the root cause. According to traditional medicine, headache is divided into two types: external headache and internal headache. The external headache is divided into: (1) wind-cold, which is treated with Chuanxiong Chajiao San; (2) wind-heat, which is treated with Ligusticum Zhi Shiyang Tang; and (3) wind-damp, which is treated with Qiangwu Shengshui Tang. The headache of internal injury is further divided into: ① liver-yang syndrome, treated with Tianma and Hooked Vine Drink; ② kidney-deficiency syndrome, treated with Da Ren Yuan Decoction; ③ qi-blood-deficiency syndrome, treated with Bazhen Tang; ④ phlegm-deficiency syndrome, treated with Han Xia Bai Zhu Tian Ma Tang; ⑤ stasis-blood syndrome, treated with Tong Qiao and Blood-activating Tang. At the same time, when using the above prescriptions to treat headache, different meridian-priming drugs should be selected, which are of great significance for the efficacy of the medicine. For example, Qiang Wu and Fang Feng for Sun headache; Bai Zhi and Ge Gen for Yang Ming headache; Chuan Xiong and Chai Hu for Shao Yang headache; Cang Zhu for Tai Yin headache; Xiao Xin for Shao Yin headache; Wu Zhu Zhu and Ligustrum for Conjugate Yin headache.