The biggest pain in my life is headache. Every time I have an attack, I get nauseous, afraid of the light, and I even throw tantrums. Babies backed away from me when they saw me. If your headaches are recurrent like mine, and after imaging has ruled out a specific cause, most of your headaches fall into the category of primary headaches, which we most often encounter.
There are two broad categories of primary headaches: migraine and tension headache. The prevalence of both of these in the Chinese population is 9-10%.
1. Migraine
Migraines are more common in women and usually start in early childhood or adolescence.
Many patients are diagnosed with migraine, and because the headache really kills them, they persistently search for medicine, hoping to get a cure, thinking that there must be a way to “end” the headache, so they are cheated by charlatans for a lot of hard-earned money.
2.Tension headache
Tension headache also occurs in women, and is more common in middle-aged and elderly women.
The prevalence of “tension headache” is actually a little higher than that of “migraine”. Patients who suffer from tension headaches repeatedly seek medical attention and strongly request to exclude diseases such as “brain infarction”, “brain tumor” and “lack of blood supply to the brain”. It is worth noting that most of the patients mentioned the “hooded sensation” or “pressure sensation”. In fact, it is more of an “uncomfortable feeling” than a typical painful feeling, and many people describe it as “head swelling” rather than “headache”, which may be related to emotional tension and work stress. It may be related to emotional stress and work pressure, and is usually accompanied by insomnia.
The above 2 images are a summary of the characteristics of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of migraine sufferers worldwide, as summarized by neurologists. The diagnosis of primary headache comes entirely from the patient’s own description of the headache.
3. Why does it hurt?
Tension headaches also occur in women, and are more common in middle-aged and older women.
Unfortunately, to date, the basic causes of primary headache are not well understood, and the pathogenesis cannot be fully explained. Because of this, a complete cure for primary headache is unattainable. To deal with primary headache, it is not about curing it in the traditional sense, but about learning to “live in peace” with your headache.
4.Teach you how to live peacefully
(1) Caffeine.
There are controversies about coffee consumption in migraine patients, mainly divided into two schools of thought: “drinking coffee can relieve headache” and “excessive coffee consumption can lead to addiction and caffeine withdrawal headache”. In fact, from the perspective of drug overuse headache, we do not agree that migraine patients should drink coffee excessively, especially when the amount of caffeine withdrawal headache can be reached (caffeine over 200mg daily for more than 2 weeks), but I think it is not bad to drink it occasionally as a substitute for painkillers in occasional migraine attacks, or as a supplement for life in general.
(2) Know yourself
The process of understanding primary headaches is also the process of understanding your family genetics, physiological changes, personality traits, and lifestyle. After understanding these, you can truly understand this disease and can truly “live in peace” with it, and can effectively choose ways to prevent it.
However, it is important to note that before diagnosing a primary headache, it is important to carefully and thoroughly rule out the possible secondary causes. There are many classifications of migraine, which are both simple and complex to describe. It is not uncommon for migraines to be combined with tension headaches; these two types of headaches are sometimes associated with other conditions, such as cerebrovascular pathology, epilepsy, anxiety and depression, and somatization disorders, which we call “co-morbidities”. When these conditions occur and you do not seek medical help in time, it may lead to a deviation from the treatment plan.
Summary
1. You are the best doctor to treat primary headache, it is more important to avoid headache attacks and know how to reduce headache.
2.Regular life, reasonable arrangement of work and rest time, proper exercise, light diet, and avoid excessive alcohol consumption.
3.For people with tension headache, it is more important to learn to distract yourself and not to pay too much attention to your headache.