Headache is defined as pain anywhere in the region of head or upper part of neck, there can be various causes of headache or can be associated with various disorders.
Causes of headache
The international headache society classifies headache as primary and secondary. Primary headaches are those in which headache and its features are the disorder itself. Secondary headaches are caused by another unerlying disorder such as meningitis and subarachnoid haemorrhage.
Common causes of headache
Primary
- Tension headache
- Migraine
- Cluster headache
Secondary
- Head injury
- Systemic infection
- Meningitis
- Subarachnoid hemorrhage
- Temporal artertis
- Brain tumor
Other causes mainly include
- Trigeminal neuralgia
- Acute sinusitis
- Pituitary apoplexy
- Venous sinus thrombosis
- Hypertensive emergencies
- Carotid artery dissection
Migraine Headache
Recurrent attacks of headache, varied in intensity, frequency and duration; commonly unilateral associated with anorexia and sometimes with nausea and vomiting.
Causes of Migraine Headache
Age – the onset may be in childhood with cyclic vomiting; typical migraine appears in adolescence and continues at interwel until the sixth decade.
Sex – more common in women
Hereditary influences – the transmitted factor being an abnormal response of cranial or other vasculature to certain external or endogenous stimuli.
Prolonged fasting – causes low blood sugar and ultimately leads to migraine.
Other cause – include prolonged exposure to bright light, particular foods, especially cheese, chocolate, citrus fruits, coffee. Mild associated head injury like heading a football.
Conditions associated with migraine
Tension headaches
Epilepsy
Allergy
Diagnosis of migraine
Diagnosis completely depends upon cause and condition of migraine
Diagnosis mainly includes:
Normal physical examination
No other reasonable cause for headache
At least two of:
- Unilateral pain
- Throbbing pain
- Aggravation of pain by movement
At least one of:
- Nausea or vomiting
- Photophobia
Migraine treatment
Treatment depends upon the cause and condition of the migraine; elimination of triggers is must. Allopathic treatment includes medication like analgesics, ergotamine, sedatives, serotonin inhibitors, propanolol etc.
Homeopathic treatment of Migraine Headache
Homeopathy is one of the most popular holistic systems of medicine. The selection of remedy is based upon the theory of individualization and symptoms similarity by using holistic approach.
This is the only way through which a state of complete health can be regained by removing all the sign and symptoms from which the patient is suffering. The aim of homeopathy is not only to treat migraine headache but to address its underlying cause and individual susceptibility.
As far as therapeutic medication is concerned, several remedies are available to treat headache that can be selected on the basis of cause, sensations and modalities of the complaints. For individualized remedy selection and treatment, the patient should consult a qualified homeopathic doctor in person. There are following homeopathic remedies which are helpful in the treatment of migraine headache:
Spigelia, Sanguinaria, Pulsatilla, Sulphur, Glonine, Natrum Mur, Natrum Carb, Arnica Mont, Arsenic Alb, Gelsemium, Platina, Bryonia, Nux vomica, Sepia, Phosphorus, Lachesis and many other medicines.
Natrum Mur – throbs, blinding headache, aches as if thousands little hammers were knocking on the brain, in the morning on awakening, after menstruation, from sunrise to sunset; Feels too large; cold.
Headache of anaemic people, of school going girls; nervous, discouraged, broken down. Chronic headache, semi lateral, congestive, from sunrise to sunset, with pale face, nausea, vomiting; periodical; from eyestrain; menstrual, before attack, numbness and tingling in lips, tongue and nose, relieved by sleep; Frontal sinus inflammation.
Belladonna – much throbbing and heat, palpitation reverberating in head with labored breathing, pain; fullness, especially in forehead, also occiput, and temples. Headache from suppressed catarrhal flow.
Pain worse, light, noise, and jar, lying down and in afternoon; better by pressure and semi erect posture. Boring in head in to pillow; drawn backward and rolls from side to side. Constant moaning. Hair splits; is dry and comes out. Headache worse in right side and when lying down; ill effects, colds, etc; from having hair cut.
Glonine – effects of sunstroke; heat on head, as in type setters and workers under gas and electric light. Head heavy, but cannot lay it on pillow. Cannot bear any heat about head. Better from uncovering head. Throbbing headache; angio-spastic neuralgia of head and face.
Very irritable; vertigo on assuming upright position, cerebral congestion; head feels enormously large, as if skull were too small for brain. Sun headaches; increases and decreases with sun. Shocks in head, synchronous with pulse. Headache in place of menses. Rush of blood to head in pregnant women.
Aconite – sunstroke, especially from sleeping in the sun’s rays; burning headache, as if the brain were agitated by boiling water, fullness and heavy feeling as if everything would push out of forehead; congestive headache, vision obscured, pressing and contracting pains in the upper part of forehead, face swollen, pale, aggravated by light, noise, motion, relieved by lying quietly in a dark room, by nosebleed, by copious urination.
Agaricus – nervous headaches; from overwork at the desk, etc; pain as if sharp ice touched the head or cold needles pierced it; pains run from occiput through the eyes or remain confined to some small spots, as left temple; pain as if fine splinters were driven in to brain, in to cheeks, which feel hot and burning; head constantly fall backward, as if weight were attached to occiput; headache of those subject to chorea, who readily become delirious in fever or with pain; headaches from spine affections; hysteria; muscular twitching and gramices of lids, face, extremities; itching and burning in various parts of body; sensation of constriction of chest; aggravated by sitting quietly; ameliorated by moving slowly about, after stool.
Anacardium – nervous headache from mental overwork and fatigue; tearing pains in forehead and back part of forehead; sensation as if a plug were in some part of the head or a constrictive sensation as if a bend were tied about head, with great mental irritability even to profanity, momentarily relieved by strong pressure and lying down and falling asleep, also by eating, worse during motion and work; headache in occiput, aggravation from misstep or from loud noise and strong odors; gastric headache from weak digestion, with fullness and distension of abdomen and pain around navel, as if blunt plug were pressed in to the intestines.
Argentum Nitricum – migraine; headache with sensation as if the head were enormously large; vertigo with debility and trembling as if the head were enormously large; vertigo with debility and trembling from nervous weakness, staggering as if drunk, dim sight, ringing in ears, better after dinner and from wine, worse from coffee; sensation as if the bones of the skull separated as if the body, especially face and head, expanded, amelioration by pressure and tight bandaging, aggravation from mental labor; pressing, digging pain, especially in forehead, with chilliness, often ending with vomiting of bile or sour fluid; disposition to pain to change locality; rapid increase and decrease of pain; morning headache when awaking; head symptoms concomitant of other diseases, brain-fag.
Bryonia Alba – congestive or neuralgic headache, mainly frontal or occipital. Shooting, stitching, bursting and throbbing pains; headache due to exposure to heat of sun or being overheated due to any cause; headache as a concomitant with inflammatory complaints or gastric disturbances; worse from slightest jar or motion even movements of eyelids, talking, even effort of thinking, worse from ironing, in the morning when first opening the eyes, when stooping , better by lying down quietly, hot fomentation.
Sanguinaria can – headache begins in occiput, spreads upwards, and settles over right eye. Periodical sick headache; begins in the morning, increasing during the day, lasts until the evening. Head feels as if it must burst, or as if eyes would pressed out. Throbbing, lancinating pains through brain, worse on right side, especially in forehead and vertex; followed by chills, nausea, vomiting of food or bile; must lie down and remain quiet; relieved by sleep; paroxysmal headache. Headache, with nausea and chilliness, followed by flushes of heat, extending from the head to the stomach; neuralgia in and over right eye.
Lachesis – bursting headaches, seems as if all the blood in the body had gone to head. Pulsating headache, with general pulsation from head to foot; hammering headaches.
Sepia – headache, right sided, with surging sensation like waves of pain rolling up and beating against frontal bone. Darting pains, from left eye over side of head towards occiput. Tearing in left temple to upper part of left side of head; headache with aversion to all kinds of food, a feeling of emptiness and goneness in stomach, very distressing. Headache every morning with nausea, vertigo, Epistaxis; in women of sallow complexion, or moth spot on forehead; headache better after meals, great feeling out of the hair.
Iris V – excellent migraine remedy in which there is periodical sick headache comes on after the patient relaxes from a mental strain. The patient usually vomits a bitter bilious substance and the vomiting gives relief in the pains in the head.
Cyclamen – remarkable migraine remedy in which migraine is accompanied with sparkling before the eyes.
Coffea – an excellent migraine remedy for migraine caused by loss of sleep following excitement.
Ignatia – marvelous migraine remedy when migraine is due to grief in hysterical patients.
Migraine Cases Cured with Homeopathic Medicine
A Case of Hearing Voices – Shirley Reischman
A Case of Migraine – by Diderik Finne
Acute Migraine in a Woman of 30 – by Parth Aphale
Hay Fever Leading To Migraine – by Radka Ševčíková
A Case of Migraine – by Pranali Kamat
A Case of Chronic Migraine – by Pankil Dhruv
Migraine in a Man of 24 – by Ajmal Saif
Migraine in a Child of 8 – by Meeta Nihlani
A Case of Migraine – by Dagmar Scholz
A Case of Migraine with Irritable Bowel Syndrome – by Preet Chugh
