The Physiology of Headaches

Wouldn't that make a great title: The Physiology of Headaches? I'm sure I'm not the first to think of that as a title, but I couldn't find it anywhere. For as much research that has taken place in this field, there is actually little known about why headaches happen. Supposedly only 10% of headaches are actually from an underlying medical condition.

What about the other 90%......?

Everyone has their own opinion, but when it comes to actually figuring out why a person is having a headache and how to prevent it from occuring again, the doctors tend to be at a loss.

Headaches run in our family. My mom has them, my sisters have them, I have them and so does my son. I can't ask him now, but my mom claims my father had them too. Why does it run in families? I've had headaches off and on since I was a teenager, but it was only recently that I started to get them everyday and noone could figure out why. My primary care physician thought it was allergies, then stress, then some type of virius. She had me on so many different medicines, they were probably creating more headaches than relieving them. Finally, I was sent to a Neurologist. Thanks to God, nothing was wrong, that they could see. Thank you God! But I was still getting headaches! The Neurologist thought the medicines were causing rebound headaches and took me off all medicine, including my birth control. And what do you know they stopped! I've been mostly headache free for about 7 months. I say mostly, because the last few months, whenever my cycle begins I have a headache. The very first day and bam! hello headache. But then it goes away after that first day. The doctor warned me they might come back once my body regulated itself, but hey once a month is better than every day!

It wasn't so clear with my son. He started having headaches when he was four. He got them constantly. The doctor could not figure out why. We tried restricting his diet, thinking allergies. We added extra protein to his diet, we tried relieving stress, we tried everything. We'd think it was due to a food and we'd take it away for a while. Then we would reintroduce it and nothing. Finally the headaches went away and he didn't have them for quite along time. He's gotten a few this summer, but now he tells me right away and I can give him something. We still don't know why he gets them and maybe we never will, but at least we can help him with them for now.

Have a great and stress free day........