HOME CURES
- Putting an ice pack or a frozen vegetable bag on your forehead at the same time you put your feet in hot water might halt a migraine headache if it is done immediately.
- When you start to notice the signs of a headache, consume three glasses, or about 24 ounces, of icy cold water, then find a quiet, dark room to rest without using a pillow.
- Breathing pure oxygen from a tank located by your bed might prevent cluster headaches from occurring at night. Make certain you ask your physician on the usage of the oxygen.
THINKING PAIN AWAY
Sometimes the imagination might be the best headache remedy. Try this method, which depends on your mind’s ability to conquer pain. Although having a partner to guide you through the process certainly helps, you can also learn to do it yourself, with some practice.
One helpful exercise is to close your eyes and think of your headache as a fluid that can fit into a certain container, with a more powerful headache being equivalent to a very large container. Think about pouring your head pain into a tinier vessel, without letting it spill over. As you imagine pouring the liquid into increasingly smaller containers, you should feel the pain begin to subside.
Be careful!
It is not safe or effective to take painkillers that have caffeine or codeine as ingredients for the treatment of headaches for prolonged periods of time. Research has revealed that using painkillers all the time actually causes a rebound reaction - really making people have headaches - or it could obstruct various medicines, like prophylactic drugs, that you might be using regularly to avoid migraine headaches. An important effect of dependence on painkillers is that they may decrease the work of the body’s natural painkillers — endorphins. Another concern is that painkiller dependence may have long lasting effects on the pathways in the brain and spinal cord that control pain.