Each of us has experienced such an unpleasant phenomenon as headaches. Their nature and forms may be different. Tension headaches are the most common type. Symptoms, treatment and causes of this phenomenon will be considered in the article.
This disease affects a third of all people on our planet. In most patients, this condition develops at a young age, if the disease occurs after 50 years, then this is rather an exception. Women are more likely than men to develop tension headaches. ICD-10, or the International Classification of Diseases, assigns the code G44.2 to this pathology.
Forms of illness
There are two types of tension headache:
- Episodic, developing as a result of stressful situations of low intensity. A tension headache can last for several minutes or several days. Symptoms in this case are as follows: moderate pain, which is eliminated by popular medications. This condition does not significantly affect the quality of life.
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Chronic tension headache symptoms are as follows:painful sensations, most often bilateral, they are localized in the occipital-frontal region. Such pain develops as a result of a spasm of the muscles of the neck and head. Chronic tension headache is quite intense and monotonous.
The clinical picture of the two forms of the disease is the same, only their duration is different.
Signs of disease
How does tension headache manifest itself? Symptoms of this disease, in addition to pain, are manifested by weakness, fatigue, irritability, nervousness, fatigue. But this pain is not throbbing, it does not develop nausea and vomiting. Many patients are diagnosed with intolerance to noise and light, they complain of lack of appetite, insomnia, absent-mindedness.
Patients define such pain as squeezing and squeezing, tightening and monotonous, dull and light, moderate and severe.
Some patients may find it uncomfortable to comb their hair or wear a head covering. The pain does not subside even at night, but it does not increase with physical exertion. When probing the muscles of the neck and head, seals are felt. Pathology can develop at any age, tension headache often occurs in children, this is due to mental overload.
Tension headache
Tension headache is common among people of working age. Other names - idiopathic, psychogenic headache.
CauseThis condition is a prolonged contraction of the muscles of the face, neck, skull. This leads to a decrease in the volume of blood flow in the vessels. As a result, oxygen starvation of muscle tissues can develop. As a result, toxins accumulate and a tension headache occurs. The symptoms in this case are as follows:
- strong facial, neck and shoulder muscle tension;
- dull non-pulsating pain going to the forehead from the back of the head;
- Sensation in forehead and temples of powerful tension.
In old age, the development of such pain is atypical.
Tension headache
Tension headache is usually severe. A person in this state cannot relax. Pain is the result of nervous overload and frequent conflict situations.
If we ignore the factors that traumatize the soul, painful sensations can stop or weaken. For example, rest with close people, a trip to nature, watching a light movie will help improve well-being.
No lesions of the nervous system are detected during the examination, and human he alth, in general, is not in danger. However, pain greatly reduces the quality of life, and the patient needs medical attention.
How to normalize the state?
If a tension headache occurs as a result of nervous overload, how to relieve discomfort? In this case, it is very important to be able to relax. This can be done in several ways, andnamely:
- do auto-training and yoga;
- have several psychotherapy sessions;
- take a relaxing herbal bath or stand under hot water in the shower;
- massage your neck;
- take a course of physical therapy;
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do physical therapy regularly.
chronic tension headache
Physical overload and tension headache
Quite often, a painful sensation in the head develops due to physical exertion. As a rule, this is due to the professional duties of a person: working at a computer or driving a car for a long time. Visual tension develops in jewelry and watchmakers, seamstresses, assemblers of small electronics, etc.
Such people should take breaks from work more often, change their posture, and self-massage problem areas.
If the child has a problem
Today, children develop tension headaches as often as adults. The symptoms in this case are the same: bilateral squeezing pain, the child becomes irritable, gets tired quickly. Often such unpleasant sensations are accompanied by pain in the back and neck, in the heart and joints, blood pressure rises or, conversely, falls, the heartbeat quickens.
The reason for prolonged muscle tension is a desk or desktop that is not suitable for growth, as a result of which the child is in an uncomfortable position for a long time.pose. Stuffiness in the room, mental and physical overwork, forced long-term starvation, weather disasters also contribute to the occurrence of pain.
Reasons
Most of the causes of this condition have already been described above. Also provoking factors of the disease can be:
- anxiety, depression and other affective conditions;
- muscle stress if a person does not move for a long time (strain of the facial, eye, neck muscles);
- frequent use of analgesics and tranquilizers;
- abrupt change in weather conditions;
- wrong posture, uncomfortable body position during sleep;
- with respiratory disorders, there is a feeling of anxiety, the result of which is pain in the head;
- ailments of the cervical spine;
- excessive consumption of alcohol and caffeinated beverages.
Tension headache treatment
Reviews on how to eliminate headaches may be different. Because each organism is individual, and what works well for one person is completely inappropriate for another. How to treat tension headaches? An integrated approach is very important here. That is, therapy should consist not only in pain relief, but also in eliminating the cause of the condition that has arisen. If tension-type headache is diagnosed, treatment primarily consists of:
- prevention of stress, anxiety, mental overload, depression;
- eliminate muscle tension;
- preventing the side effect of pain medication.
Drug therapy
The following medicines are used for this pathology:
- Antidepressants - Duloxetine, Amitriptyline, Paroxetine.
- Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs - Naproxen, Aspirin, Ketoprofen.
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Muscle relaxants - Tizanidin, Tolperisone.
how to treat tension headaches
Combination of tension headache and abuse headache
When using pharmaceutical drugs, you should strictly adhere to the treatment regimen recommended by your doctor. Uncontrolled use of medications, especially those related to non-steroidal drugs, can cause abuse headaches. That is, the drugs themselves cause it. To differentiate this condition from tension headache, the drug that caused the abuse should be discontinued for 2 months. If after this the normalization of well-being does not occur, a diagnosis of chronic tension headache is made. If, on the background of discontinuation of medications, the patient's condition noticeably improves, then there is an abuse pain.
Combination of tension headache and migraine
Some patients have a combination of episodic tension-type headache and episodicmigraine. As a rule, such people suffer from frequent migraines. And over time, they develop tension headaches. These two forms of pathology have different symptoms, so it will not be difficult to distinguish one from the other.
In the case of chronic migraine attacks become atypical. And then it can be difficult to distinguish chronic migraine from chronic tension headache. In such a situation, the patient is offered to keep a diary and for a long time (about 2 months) note in it the clinical manifestations that alleviate and provoke the factors of each attack. This will make it easier to further establish an accurate diagnosis.
Non-drug treatments
For a condition such as tension-type headache, treatment can be carried out without the use of drugs. There are more gentle methods, they include:
- relaxation of the body;
- relaxing massage for tense muscles;
- acupuncture.
Traditional medicine in the fight against a condition such as tension headache: treatment, reviews
Such a headache is not particularly intense, but it can disrupt a person's normal psycho-emotional state for a long time. The following recommendations will help reduce the manifestations of an attack:
- You need to relax as much as possible, if possible, leave the workplace and move away from the computer for a few minutes.
- Bin a stressful situation, you should calm down and brew a cup of herbal tea. According to patients' reviews, thyme herb infusion not only perfectly strengthens the nerves, but also has a beneficial effect on the activity of the brain vessels. To prepare a healing drink, add 0.5 liters of boiling water to 5 grams of grass, leave for 30 minutes. Take the resulting infusion three times a day for a week, after taking a break for 14 days.
- In the treatment of this disease, patients note the high effectiveness of the following exercise: when inhaling, the stomach is inflated, while exhaling, it is slowly retracted. The exhalation should last twice as long as the inhalation. The procedure should be carried out within 15 minutes. By the way, with the help of this exercise, you can noticeably tighten sagging abdominal muscles.
- Massage of the collar area and head will noticeably improve well-being. You can make it yourself - with your fingers or a comb.
- Many patients experience less pain after a good long sleep or a relaxing bath.
- A cold compress applied to the forehead gives a good effect. For it, you can use a golden mustache plant, cabbage leaf or beet pulp.
If the above recommendations do not give the desired result and the tension headache does not subside, an experienced specialist will tell you how to relieve an attack and what medications to use for this purpose.
Prevention measures
UFor some people, a painful feeling in the head area can occur quite often, in this case it is a chronic tension headache. And often, patients take a fairly large amount of medication to normalize the condition, which, in turn, can provoke new attacks. Therefore, it is important to know how to prevent the development of such a pathology.
Prevention is as follows:
- A good night's rest. Everyone should sleep at least eight hours a day. Experts recommend going to bed no later than 23 hours. It is from 11 pm until 1 am that the body recuperates.
- To prevent the development of muscle tension during work, it is recommended to take a break every hour and do gymnastics for all departments of the musculoskeletal system.
- Be sure to take daily walks in the fresh air.
- Regular physical activity not only improves he alth, but also minimizes the negative impact of stressful situations.
- To improve the general condition of the body, it is recommended to take a course of treatment with decoctions of soothing medicinal herbs, such plants include valerian, motherwort, peony tincture.
- Coffee and alcoholic beverages should be kept to a minimum.
Forecast
Rarely occurring episodic headaches do not particularly affect the performance and well-being of a person. If the number of seizuresincreases per month, it is worth paying attention to. Since in this case the disease can acquire a chronic course, as a result of which psycho-emotional instability and depression develop. The prognosis depends on how timely drug therapy was started, in especially severe cases, treatment with antidepressants can last up to six months.
If it is revealed that the cause of pain is dependence on pain medication, then therapy requires a different approach. It is necessary to conduct a thorough medical examination, according to the results of which the specialist will advise an effective course of treatment with other drugs.
Conclusion
After reading this article, you have learned more about tension headaches. Symptoms, types, causes and principles of treatment of the pathological condition have been described above. Remember that positive emotions have a positive effect on the state of the whole organism, and when they prevail over negative ones, headaches develop much less frequently. Try to always maintain a good mood and good spirits, do not harbor feelings of resentment and anger in your soul, take life at ease and easily - and then your emotional state will always be normal. Stay he althy!
