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Pharmacy Links

BENIGN RECURRENT HEADACHES

March 23, 2009

Two types of benign headaches exist: Muscle Contraction Headaches and Vascular Headaches.

Muscle Contraction or Tension Headaches account for the vast majority of headaches. Almost invariably they are caused by unresolved emotional stress which is translated through the fight-or-flight response into abnormal contraction of the shoulder, neck and scalp muscles. There are two classes of tension headaches.

Acute tension headaches are isolated headaches generally caused by stress. They can normally be relieved by OTC drugs or by natural therapies and medical help is seldom required.

Chronic tension headaches persist day after day without relief. Many chronic tension headaches axe linked to anxiety and depression and can continue without letup for years. Drugs serve only to temporarily relieve symptoms. The only treatment that really works is Cognitive Positivism (Technique #17).

Some variants of tension headaches are combination tension-vascular headaches, including exertion headaches, and those associated with temporomandibular joint syndrome, or TMJ.

Vascular Headaches. Usually caused by unresolved emotional stress, which triggers the fight-or-flight response, these headaches are set in motion by a complex series of biochemical reactions that cause changes in blood vessels and in blood flow in the head.

Whether or not the fight-or-flight response sots off a muscle contraction headache, or a vascular headache, or no headache at all, appears to depend on an individual’s personal neurological chemistry. Headache specialists prefer to say that one person may have a biochemical predisposition to tension headaches, for example, while another may have a predisposition to migraine headaches. In either case, the headache mechanism it set in motion when the tight-or-flight response is invoked.

The most common vascular headache is migraine, which has several variants; some exertion headaches; hangover, caffeine withdrawal; ice cream; hunger; and menstrual headaches. Cluster headaches are another type of vascular headache.