Are you a headache person?

[BecomingMe]

I have suffered from headaches for more than thirty years. Anything or nothing can trigger it eg alcohol, skipped meal, not enough water, exercise. I don’t get the awful monthly migraines any more as I am in my 50s but still suffer random headaches.

I went to bed at about 11pm last night, ate normally yesterday, no alcohol, just water at bedtime and I have woken up with a headache which won’t shift despite two painkillers.

I live a generally healthy lifestyle these days. I have a friend who will polish off a bottle of wine each evening and she never gets a headache whereas I would only have to look at alcohol and feel rough the next day.

If I could work out a definite trigger it would help.

Does anyone else suffer from headaches and do you know what the trigger is? Have you managed to ‘cure’ yourself?

Yes, a lot of mine seem to come from tension in my neck and shoulders so yoga helps a bit

Yes I get headaches and hormonal migraines.

Hot steaming shower on my head helps, there's something about McDonald's coke that helps too (caffeine maybe) , ibuprofen and paracetamol together, if it's a stress headache then massaging the back of my neck helps. Mostly I just need to sleep it off.

Oh and also I have an olbas nasal inhaler which helps relieve the pain behind my eye.

I get stress headaches, headaches because of straining my eyes (I really ought to wear my glasses in the house but they're uncomfortable when I want to say down to watch TV) and headaches from not eating or drinking enough.

I woke with a headache today. Solpadeine extra is my friend. I keep a bottle of water to sip near me at all times. I can even tell if I'm breathing in a certain type of air that it'll give me a headache.

Mine are hormone based... Fine when pregnant, on pill or b feeding... Get worse and worse longer not one of above...
Depo injection or mini pill totally stopped them... And sorted out ridiculous periods

Stress, lack of sleep and overuse of painkillers can trigger headaches for me. Sometimes there’s no obvious cause at all!

The only thing that sometimes works in getting rid of them is full sugar coke. I hate being a headache person though, they are a blight on my life but luckily I seem to have grown out of the awful migraines I had in my 20s.

I have absolutely nothing to whinge about, other than not seeing DDs for so bloody long, and yet I'm in a right old grump and done pretty much buggerall today.

I blame the wind.

And the fact that, like pretty much everyone else, I Can't Go Somewhere (Anywhere!) Just Because I Want To!

And breathe. And remind self of all the good stuff. And go turn up the heating and make a cup of tea. And do something (only because if I don't this headache won't heck off - I think it's frustration with myself).

^ Please ignore. Wrong thread!

Right thread actually, you have a headache, same as lots of us!

Nope...very rarely and I could go a good few days without a glass of water tbh. I drink tea mostly 🤷‍♀️

Oh yes, since I was 12. The hormonal trigger is gone now, but there are left:
change in routine (get up at 6 even at the week end)
sweet alcohol
certain types of weather conditions
wrong pillow
unstructured day
sitting in an audience and holding my head the wrong way for a time (sort of takes the fun out of theatre and concerts)
occasionally a hot shower helps + ibuprofen + sleeping it off in a cool dark room

Well it seems like there are many of us. My headache Is finally starting to ease after painkillers, lots of water and stodgy food. I feel like I have wasted a whole day and it wasn’t even a hangover!

I used to get them when my teeth/jaws were overcrowded. The headaches stopped instantly when I had teeth removed: one premolar each side top and bottom to reduce the overcrowding

Posture.

Are you working from home on a laptop on your legs? That encourages you to push your head forward and put considerably more strain on your neck.

Check your sleeping position - too many pillows means that your head is too high and your neck is bent up or to one side, too low does the reverse strain.

The resulting headaches start at your neck, travel to the base of your skull and then round behind and above your ears and then, if the posture isn't corrected, over your scalp and across your forehead.

Cold packs are great for neck based headaches.

Other than that - sinuses. You might feel that you've been twatted across the cheek with a baseball bat or that the dips around the top of your nose/eyebrow, the 'flick' part of your brow or directly down just below the bones that make your eye socket are incredibly tender. If it's that, go in all guns blazing - Pseudoephedrine (Sudafed) - the one from behind the counter at the chemist, cold packs and, if you can, rinsing the nostrils with a Neti Pot and warm sterile saline rinse (boiled cooled water if you make it yourself) a couple of times a day.

Christ the weather. My biggest trigger - I can tell when it rains without looking outside.

Stress/tiredness/posture also.

I get migraines a few times a year with ocular auras etc. Light seems to be a trigger (I struggle with dusk and that switch from light to dark in the summer).

Haven’t RTFT but I have suffered from headaches for as long as I can remember, and about a year ago I started taking a multivitamin with iron and they greatly reduced. Like magic. Literally overnight.

Then a few months ago I gave up meat for a month and they came back. Upped my meat intake and they reduced again.

I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is but must be some sort of deficiency from something that is found in meat. As long as I eat meat 3-4 times a week and take the multivitamin I’m ok.

Dehydration, too much sun, tension usually starts in my neck, skipped meals, stuffy rooms, hormonal, hair tied back too tightly

No, not a headache person. If there's something bothering me- stress, sadness, frustration, tiredness, even the smell of a too strong perfume - I feel it in my stomach. Get horrible pains there several days a week...

• Yoga classes for migraine/ headaches online
• Botox for headaches. It’s a thing!

I used to think I got "headaches" and rarely "migraines" but only realised about 5 years ago majority were migraines. This helped in that I was looking into a wider range of triggers.
Mine are sleep (weirdly I'm ok on poor /little sleep) but if I am tired, then get a good night sleep I am very likely the next morning to get a migraine.
Also hormonal timing and not eating for long periods. Dehydration makes no difference to me.
I get about 3 a month.

I can stop migraine with 2 paracetamol and 2 ibuprofen together if taken within the first hour or two. Weirdly I don't get much pain at the start, my face feels a bit numb.
At one stage I was thinking of amitriptyline as prevention as I had heard a talk by a neurologist about it. But actually knowing when they are likely and keeping the painkillers on me incase needed (and taking them at the numb face stage) means I can manage.

Yep. My worst ones come if I've been too hot while I've been asleep. I have a mini humidifier by the bed now which is helping.

I go through phases of having a headache nearly every day, or sometimes none for ages. No definite trigger than I can identify. They’re never crippling - just somewhere between nagging and very bad.

I’ve had them ev r since I was a child.

Also keeping a detailed diary on food, water, coffee, tea, exercise, sleep, menstrual cycle etc can be very tedious but give you some insights as to if there is a trend

I suffer from headaches and also migraines. I drink a lot so don't think its that. I do think sometimes it's a genetic thing as pretty much anything can trigger mine (or seemingly nothing). I always go for anti-inflammatory painkillers, a large glass of water, something carby to eat and ideally some caffeine to treat them. If this combination doesn't work I will use heat/ice plus paracetamol and a nap if possible too. I don't manage to prevent them as the triggers are so wide but a combination of the above treatments normally help. If its a migraine then I have migraine meds to use plus anti sickness.