Articles
Headaches: Treatment depends on your diagnosis and symptoms
Are the headaches dull and achy?
Are the headaches throbbing and severe?
Do you have headaches nearly every day?
Do the headaches recur for weeks at a time?
Do you take pain medication more than 2 or 3 days a week?
Content
Tension-type headaches
Migraines
Recognize emergency symptoms
Take control
Migraines
Migraines are another common type of headache. They affect three times more women than men. Migraines typically:
- Cause pain that is moderate to severe
- Pulsate
- Cause nausea, vomiting, or increased sensitivity to light or sound
- Affect only one side of your head, but can affect both sides
- Worsen with activity such as climbing steps
- Last from four to 72 hours without treatment
Treatment
Migraine treatment is aimed at relieving symptoms and preventing additional attacks. If you know what triggers your migraines, avoiding those triggers and learning how to manage them can help prevent migraines or lessen the pain. Treatment might include:
- Rest in a quiet, dark room
- Hot or cold compresses to your head or neck
- Massage and small amounts of caffeine
- Over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin IB, others), acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) and aspirin
- Prescription medications including triptans, such as sumatriptan (Imitrex) and zolmitriptan (Zomig)
- Preventive medications such as metoprolol (Lopressor), propranolol (Innopran, Inderal, others), amitriptyline, divalproex (Depakote), topiramate (Qudexy XR, Trokendi XR ,Topamax) or erenumab-aooe (Aimovig)
