Headache Archive

Next time you're looking for pain relief, try a little distraction.

A recent study published in Current Biology found that mental distractions actually block pain signals from the body before they ever reach the brain. "Human brains have a limited capacity for attention. If you have a demanding enough task, you'll have less attention to give to your pain," explains Dr. Randy Gollub, associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Acupuncture helps relieve chronic pain in the back, neck, and shoulders, as well as pain from osteoarthritis and headaches, according to a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

To compare acupuncture with conventional pain therapy, researchers pooled the findings of 29 past studies involving nearly 18,000 people. The study revealed that some, but not all, of the pain relief was due to the placebo effect, in which people experience benefits from treatments that may not have a documented effect.

Women are three times more likely than men to get migraine headaches, in part because of the hormone estrogen. A number of different medications are available to prevent migraine and stop them when they first start.

Take advantage of proven therapies.

If you are a migraine sufferer, then you undoubtedly long for something, anything, to keep these painful episodes from recurring. Migraines affect about 15% of the adult population, but only a relatively small percentage of those people take advantage of preventive medications.

Migraine prevention guidelines released earlier this year by the American Academy of Neurology and the American Headache Society note that about 38% of people who have migraines could benefit from preventive medications, but less than a third of those people actually utilize these treatments. Dr. Lee Schwamm, vice chairman of the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, suggests that one explanation may be that these drugs must be taken every day to be effective, even though migraines might only be "an intermittent problem."

Dr. Paul B. Rizzoli is director of the John R. Graham Headache Center at Faulkner Hospital in Boston. He is co-author of The Migraine Solution: A Complete Guide to Diagnosis, Treatment, and Pain Management, a Harvard Health Publications/St. Martin's Press book.

What is a migraine headache?

Migraine can be defined as a limiting headache — a headache that stops you from functioning. The pain is not a mild, insignificant thing you can ignore; you must actively decide what to do about it. Nausea is also a common symptom.

Q. I have heard that one symptom of a stroke is "the worst headache you can imagine." I recently had a migraine that was so much more painful than previous ones that I worried it was a stroke. Is there any way to tell a migraine from a "stroke headache"?

A. The term "stroke" covers several distinct events that differ in location and cause. Some types of stroke can trigger a headache; others usually don't. To understand the connection, it's helpful to know a bit about the brain and pain. Brain tissue, and the blood vessels embedded in it, doesn't register pain. But the membranes that surround the brain and the blood vessels that run through them do register pain.

Q. What exactly happens when I eat something cold and get an ice cream headache? Is it harmful in any way?

A. Ice cream headache, also known as "brain freeze" or cold-stimulus headache, is a headache some people get when they consume a cold food or beverage quickly. The pain is usually in the forehead or both temples, and it usually lasts less than five minutes.