Headache Treatment Specialist Iowa

Headache And its Types

Headaches are perhaps the most common ailment one comes across. Almost all of us might have experienced headaches in some form or the other in our lifetimes. However, if a headache becomes chronic, it severely impacts your productivity. As an employee, you might not be able to concentrate on your work or even be absent from it.

Headaches are categorized into primary and secondary headaches.

Primary headaches: These headaches are not triggered due to other underlying conditions. The examples can be tension headaches, migraines, and cluster headaches.
Secondary headaches: These types of headaches are caused by some other illness or underlying condition. The examples of these headaches can be tumors, injury or trauma to the head, condition like spondylitis, sinus, medication overdose and many more

What Triggers a Headache?

There can be many factors why a person is suffering from a headache. A pain in the head takes place when some condition triggers a nerve reaction due to which pain signals are transmitted to the brain. Some headaches like migraines are not fully understood and are believed to be hereditary in nature. Migraine is a condition in which a headache is triggered when the nerves overreact to certain stimuli like dehydration and hormone fluctuations. The migraine pain is severe and debilitating.

Some other factors that trigger headaches are changes in the weather, hunger, poor sleep, stress on the neck/back, narcotic or alcohol abuse, anxiety and emotional depression.

Symptoms and when to see a Doctor

Generally, headaches go away after relaxing a bit or sleeping. However, some headaches might be chronic and can last up to hours – resting does not help in this case. The characteristics of various types of headaches are different from one another. For instance, a headache due to hypertension might be strong in the morning, like a “hairband”, but goes away as the day passes. On the other hand, hemiplegic migraine is a throbbing stroke-like severe pain that causes nausea, numbness, and weakness, or even paralysis on one side.

Headaches are a common phenomenon and usually, there is nothing serious about them. But, if you are experiencing the below symptoms, you need to visit the doctor immediately:

Headache that causes body imbalance.
Headache causing numbness, dizziness, and fainting.
Headache leading to nausea and vomiting.
Headache leading to abnormal speech and mental issues.
Headache that wakes you up from sleep.
Headache causing paralysis.
Headache accompanying shortness of breath.

Do not ignore such headaches as a serious underlying condition might be growing.

Treatment at Dunes Pain

Physicians at Dunes Pain Clinic are well-equipped to handle any type of headache. Headache treatment does not involve just medication but other types of treatment therapies as well as – conservative, alternative, and surgical treatments.

Depending upon the situation and type of the patient’s headache, the treatment process will be derived. They can be a combination of:

Medication: It includes NSAIDs, generally available painkillers (aspirin/ibuprofen), antibiotics (in case of infections), anti-inflammatory and depression drugs, and many more.

Non-Surgical Procedures: This includes physical therapy and massages to relax the body. Procedures like Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) can also be performed on the patient.

Psychological counseling: A patient might need education and counseling in order to deal with the trauma that comes with severe headaches.

Surgical Procedures: Surgical procedures like nerve blocks, steroid injections, and spinal cord stimulation fall into this category.

Your doctor might use a composition of all the treatments that are mentioned above. Call Dunes Pain Clinic to know more about Headache treatment!