Up to a million people in the UK have “completely preventable” severe headaches caused by taking too many painkillers, doctors have said.
Good grief! I’ve known this for years. Being a migraine sufferer, I am prone to cluster headaches. These are headaches that will persist for several days at a time. Unlike a migraine, they are not completely disabling. I can work through them, but have to keep popping the analgesics. However, I am aware – indeed, have long been aware – that the cure can create a vicious cycle whereby the pain continues longer than it needs to. My solution is to just stop taking the tablets once I have the luxury of enduring the headache without having to concentrate on anything else such as work or driving.
What amuses me is that it is suddenly deemed newsworthy when those of us who suffer have known about it all along and manage it ourselves by doing the obvious. NICE (shome mishtake, shurely?) also suggest acupuncture in some circumstances. Well, well, well, there’s a turnout. Usually conventional medicine is hostile to the alternatives. Certainly evidence that it can work and work well is cheerfully ignored when bashing it. The *hostility towards chiropractic being one such. I know from personal experience that it helps ease back pain and has diagnosed problems missed by my GP, yet remains out on a limb, despised by the mainstream (it also helped with my migraines). Yet here they are suggesting acupuncture for headaches. Whatever next?
As a postscript to this article, I haven’t had a migraine for over two years now. Not since I stopped drinking coffee.
*There is an alternative to the normal chiropractic method criticised by Singh in his original article. The McTimoney method is much gentler and is the method I have used.
Cluster headaches…me too…Sumatriptan works brilliantly for me in contracting the blood vessels that are squishing the nerves. 1 tablet a day…for the three days it persists…and done.
It’s rather disingenuous for doctors to say that a catch-all “painkillers” don’t work. It’s rather that doctors are too often prescribing painkillers that don’t actually target the pain but mask and prolong it. A bit more effort into it…and patient can take measures such as you have in avoiding caffeine… and that’s doctors and patient both happy.
That might upset the pharma companies pushing for certain brands tho… 😐
I found triptans effective with my migraines. Not needed them for a couple of years now. Oddly enough, I don’t think it’s the caffeine in coffee that’s the problem as I can drink caffeinated soft drinks and not get a migraine.
Funny you should say that ‘cos I wasn’t drinking coffee at all aged 13 when mine first kicked off. My father…of all people and not my dear ole mam !… put it down to the rush of hormones in puberty and noted they disappeared completely during both my pregnancies. Dunno if he was a “progressive” man or borderline autistic in attention to detail but maybe he had a point.
Logically, they’re a result of chemical reaction and…since the hormone arguement wouldn’t apply to a man who suffer just as badly with them…then I guess some people are just more sensitive as to what they introduce into their systems than others.
The wrong medication would therefore exacerbate them but that’s for doctors to pay more attention to.
Whatever causes them they’re bloody horrendous and much more than just a headache or what most people think of as a “migraine”. 🙁
Had about three of them over my life and don’t wish it on my worst enemy. Poor you.
Interesting that you are sensitive to coffee but not to caffeine. I would have thought it would be the caffeine that induces the migraine. Perhaps the phenols? http://www.raysahelian.com/phenolic.html
As I’ve got older, I have become less able to drink coffee because of the caffeine – if I drink more than a couple a day I get really wired – it’s quite unpleasant. A shame, as I love a freshly made espresso. (I never drink instant, it’s horrible.)
Yes, the “painkillers” label is really silly. There are so many different types that a generalisation like that is meaningless. I tend to avoid taking painkillers unless I really have to, but if I do for a headache I’ll take paracetamol and for a toothache I’ll take Ponstan, which is a totally different animal. And my wife takes Ibuprofen when she has period pains – another completely different compound. How on earth can they lump them all together under one heading?
But then it’s another one of those “Doctors have said…” MSM fact-lite articles, as in “Doctors have said (research indicates; experts believe…choose your prefix) that smoking may cause warts on your willy…”.
Just another bit of medi-fiction that the press are wont to publish.
But it used to be something that everyone understood. Too much reliance (on most things actually) reduces their effectiveness and causes a backlash as the body normalises to needing them. It was accepted common sense. But now one suspects it’s another tool to send the message that these awful dangerous drugs must be brought under stricter control because people like us are too stupid to be allowed them.
Incidentally I used to get quite frequent low level migranes, they stopped, and have never returned, immediately after I started taking beta blockers for a heart condition.
This is one of those things that needs occasional repetition, unfortunately.
A lot of migraine are caused by restriction of the blood-flow up the back of the neck/back of the skull….
Take an anti-inflammatory NOT a pinkiller, and massage the back of the neck/skull.
Works for me, at least 95% of the time.