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What Causes Frequent Headaches?
Question: Location : Bangalore(India)
Age: 28 years
Gender : Male
Profession : software engineer
Problem: Frequent Headache since age of 7-8 years.
Description:
Headache mostly occurs in overall head, forehead, temples but sometimes around neck and eyes also.
It occurs on various environmental conditions like - heat/hot weather, strong sunlight, seeing bright lights, loud noise, unpleasant odour, delaying/skipping food, either lack of sleep or excessive sleep, watching tv/computer for very long time and travelling in suffocated vehicles (especially buses and other diesel vehicles which have unpleasant).
Extreme stress, tension and anger also causes headache.
Headache occurs at an average of 2-3 days in a week.
Normally, once headache starts, it remains for 5-6 hours
Sometimes headache occurs when I wake up in the morning and it remains till evening.
Temporary remedies:
1. Going outside in nature and having a casual walk around trees in cool air etc. This gives a great relaxed feeling.
2. Practicing relaxation of full body muscles with closed eyes and slow breathing exercises with some basic meditation helps to a great extent.
3. Applying eucalyptus oil on forehead, temples, smelling the oil through nose gives some relaxation.
4. A light massage on forehead, temples, overall around the head and neck also gives relaxation.
5. Having a hot beverage like tea, coffee or milk helps.
6. Having a short sleep of 60-90 minutes also helps.
Treatments taken so far:
I have visited various types of doctors such as general physician, neurologist (prescribed some steroids which made me lazy and fat), ENT, eye specialist (used spectacles several times), homeopathy, ayurveda, unani and even psychiatarist.But, none of this helped me.
Now, after having headache for such a long time (past 20 years almost) I have accepted headache as part of my life and I stopped taking any treatments because none of them were of any help. Some doctors suggested to take paracetamol when I have headache, but that is also of no help .
However, good thing is even when I am having headache I can carry on my routine activies as usual but with slight difficulty. Headache doesnt stop me from living my normal life. The only problem is that headache just disturbs me. Its more like a distraction which acts as a resistance in normal life.
Age: 28 years
Gender : Male
Profession : software engineer
Problem: Frequent Headache since age of 7-8 years.
Description:
Headache mostly occurs in overall head, forehead, temples but sometimes around neck and eyes also.
It occurs on various environmental conditions like - heat/hot weather, strong sunlight, seeing bright lights, loud noise, unpleasant odour, delaying/skipping food, either lack of sleep or excessive sleep, watching tv/computer for very long time and travelling in suffocated vehicles (especially buses and other diesel vehicles which have unpleasant).
Extreme stress, tension and anger also causes headache.
Headache occurs at an average of 2-3 days in a week.
Normally, once headache starts, it remains for 5-6 hours
Sometimes headache occurs when I wake up in the morning and it remains till evening.
Temporary remedies:
1. Going outside in nature and having a casual walk around trees in cool air etc. This gives a great relaxed feeling.
2. Practicing relaxation of full body muscles with closed eyes and slow breathing exercises with some basic meditation helps to a great extent.
3. Applying eucalyptus oil on forehead, temples, smelling the oil through nose gives some relaxation.
4. A light massage on forehead, temples, overall around the head and neck also gives relaxation.
5. Having a hot beverage like tea, coffee or milk helps.
6. Having a short sleep of 60-90 minutes also helps.
Treatments taken so far:
I have visited various types of doctors such as general physician, neurologist (prescribed some steroids which made me lazy and fat), ENT, eye specialist (used spectacles several times), homeopathy, ayurveda, unani and even psychiatarist.But, none of this helped me.
Now, after having headache for such a long time (past 20 years almost) I have accepted headache as part of my life and I stopped taking any treatments because none of them were of any help. Some doctors suggested to take paracetamol when I have headache, but that is also of no help .
However, good thing is even when I am having headache I can carry on my routine activies as usual but with slight difficulty. Headache doesnt stop me from living my normal life. The only problem is that headache just disturbs me. Its more like a distraction which acts as a resistance in normal life.
Brief Answer:
A few suggestions, please do try them
Detailed Answer:
Hello sir and welcome.
Thank you for writing to us.
I have gone through your query with diligence and would like you to know that I am here to help.
As mentioned in your query sir, you have visited various doctors from varying fields of specialty so I am not going to ask you to visit a doctor to get a more accurate diagnosis and treatment as I should rightfully do. But I am going to ask you to try a few of my suggestions to help tackle the headaches, and prevent them from occurring on such a regular basis. They are
-Sleep at regular hours: Try to fix a specific time to wake up everyday and a specific time to sleep everyday. Make sure you get 9 hours of sleep
-Do not oversleep: Even during the weekend, try not to oversleep and make sure you wake up once your sleep is complete and it is the fixed time to wake up
-Eat meals on time: Do not skip your meals, and eat them on time
-Avoid long gaps between meals: Make sure you have fruits and salads when you feel hungry between meals
-Avoid chocolates
-Avoid oily/fatty/fried food as this can also be a contributing factor
-Make sure you get at least 30 minutes of walking everyday
-Avoid extreme climates: Make sure you are not exposed to extreme heat or cold. Be prepared at all times
-Avoid having hot beverages on a regular basis: Although you have mentioned that they seem to help, both tea and caffeine are major contributing factors to headaches
-Avoid staring at computer screens, smartphones, television screens for long duration's of time. If possible, make sure you close your eyes or shift your concentration towards other things every 30 minutes (but avoid reading while you are in this relaxation period). If possible close your eyes, and place slices of cucumber on them for 5 minutes
-Try to avoid suffocated vehicles (choose a window seat)
-If at all, you feel like your headache is going to start please try to take any of the following medications:
+ Sumatriptan tablet 50 mg one tablet when you feel the headache is just beginning
+ Valance (divalproex) 500 mg once a day
+ Inderal (propanolol) 80 mg per day
Sir, I understand that you must be tired of taking medications. But the reason why I have prescribed these medications, is to confirm my suspected diagnosis. Also, I have given you the names of more than one tablet because if at all one does not help, then I wish for you to try the next. But if at all, any one of these tablets do help you. Then my suspected diagnosis will be correct, and I shall share that with you. So please make sure you try them when in need, along with the lifestyle modifications I have mentioned earlier.
I hope you find my response helpful. Please feel free to write back to me for any further clarifications, I would be more than happy to help you.
Best wishes.
A few suggestions, please do try them
Detailed Answer:
Hello sir and welcome.
Thank you for writing to us.
I have gone through your query with diligence and would like you to know that I am here to help.
As mentioned in your query sir, you have visited various doctors from varying fields of specialty so I am not going to ask you to visit a doctor to get a more accurate diagnosis and treatment as I should rightfully do. But I am going to ask you to try a few of my suggestions to help tackle the headaches, and prevent them from occurring on such a regular basis. They are
-Sleep at regular hours: Try to fix a specific time to wake up everyday and a specific time to sleep everyday. Make sure you get 9 hours of sleep
-Do not oversleep: Even during the weekend, try not to oversleep and make sure you wake up once your sleep is complete and it is the fixed time to wake up
-Eat meals on time: Do not skip your meals, and eat them on time
-Avoid long gaps between meals: Make sure you have fruits and salads when you feel hungry between meals
-Avoid chocolates
-Avoid oily/fatty/fried food as this can also be a contributing factor
-Make sure you get at least 30 minutes of walking everyday
-Avoid extreme climates: Make sure you are not exposed to extreme heat or cold. Be prepared at all times
-Avoid having hot beverages on a regular basis: Although you have mentioned that they seem to help, both tea and caffeine are major contributing factors to headaches
-Avoid staring at computer screens, smartphones, television screens for long duration's of time. If possible, make sure you close your eyes or shift your concentration towards other things every 30 minutes (but avoid reading while you are in this relaxation period). If possible close your eyes, and place slices of cucumber on them for 5 minutes
-Try to avoid suffocated vehicles (choose a window seat)
-If at all, you feel like your headache is going to start please try to take any of the following medications:
+ Sumatriptan tablet 50 mg one tablet when you feel the headache is just beginning
+ Valance (divalproex) 500 mg once a day
+ Inderal (propanolol) 80 mg per day
Sir, I understand that you must be tired of taking medications. But the reason why I have prescribed these medications, is to confirm my suspected diagnosis. Also, I have given you the names of more than one tablet because if at all one does not help, then I wish for you to try the next. But if at all, any one of these tablets do help you. Then my suspected diagnosis will be correct, and I shall share that with you. So please make sure you try them when in need, along with the lifestyle modifications I have mentioned earlier.
I hope you find my response helpful. Please feel free to write back to me for any further clarifications, I would be more than happy to help you.
Best wishes.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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