Tension Headache Medicine And Relief

When you are having to endure the pain, you clearly want to have some tension headache medicine on hand to alleviate your troubles.

In order to discover what the most effective treatment is all about, it is vital that you learn all about what a tension headache is in the first place.

According to an authoritative resource such as Mayo Clinic, a tension headache can be a mild-to-moderate, mostly diffuse pain that is frequently detailed by sufferers as something of a tight band around the neck.

Despite the fact that this form of a headache is actually the most popular, as in it is the most-reported headache to occur to people, it is hardly understood all that well. Speaking strictly in medical terms, a tension headache is referred to as a tension-type headache.

The reason that this kind of headache is called a tension-type headache is because its sufferers usually feel as though any muscle contractions are to blame for the oncoming pain.

However, just because sufferers fell a certain way does not actually make it a reality, which is why, at present, the experts actually believe that muscle contractions are not to blame for the pain any longer. There is hope, though!

Relief

There is a whole bunch of tension headache medicine out there that people can take in order to experience some relief from their headache.

Besides actual tension headache medicine, there are also more natural approaches that a sufferer of a tension headache can utilize in order to get some form of relief from this kind of a headache.

These more natural approaches are finding a balance between fostering healthy habits and also seeking out those very effective though non-drug alternatives.

Symptoms

When you are seized by a tension headache, you will likely experience these following, telltale symptoms that are hard to ignore.

First of all, you probably will not be able to ignore the aching and dull pain around your head. This will most likely be accompanied by a good amount of pressure and/or tightness all over the forehead as well as on the sides and even the back of the head.

There may very well also be a good amount of tenderness all over the shoulder, neck and scalp areas.

At times, though this is not as frequent as the aforementioned signs and symptoms, you might experience a drop-off in your appetite.

Causes

To truly understand your tension headache and so take the necessary steps to avoid it, you should know what some of the causes behind it could be.

It might be a little bit staggering to realize that this form of headache can be attributed to a number of psychologically related causes.

For instance, some of the main causes of a tension headache are things such as stress (making stress relief one of the ways that you can use to successfully combat a tension headache) as well as depression and anxiety.

Believe it or not, even something as seemingly innocuous as a bad posture may cause tension headaches, too! If you clench your jaw or work in a position that is awkward or, alternately, just hold one type of position for too long a period of time you could develop a tension headache.

Treatment

Treatment can include tension headache medicine such as pain relievers.

Pain relievers can be even as basic as over-the-counter offerings such as Motrin B, basic aspirin or Advil. Prescription medication can also be useful; prescription medication includes things such as Naprosyn and Indocin. Triptans as well as narcotics have been shown to be effective with tension headaches, too.

But what about tension headache medicine that is preventative? The aforementioned examples all included tension headache medicine that only treats the pain of a tension headache when it has already come on!

Some examples of preventative tension headache medicine are tricyclic antidepressants such as Pamelor, muscle relaxants such as Zanaflex and anticonvulsants such as Topamax, and SSRI's such as Prozac.

Digging Deeper

Besides basic tension headache medicine, you can also pursue lifestyle changes and all-natural approaches to dealing with your unfortunate tension headache.

For instance, you can simply begin meditating by using the mindfulness meditation technique.

Alternately, you can also extremely fundamental lifestyle changes such as getting adequate sleep, cutting down on how much alcohol you drink and stopping the use of street drugs (presuming that you are taking them at all).

There is a lot you can do to get that clear head turned back on.

From Tension Headache Medicine to the main page about stress symptoms