Affecting 18% of women and 6% of men, finding migraine treatments is critical if you want to be able to live a happy, healthy life.
According to the Migraine Research Foundation(1), nearly 1 in 4 households has someone who suffers from this kind of head pain. As any sufferer will know, this kind of pain is often debilitating and quite uncomfortable.
Another shocking statistic is that a person is rushed to the emergency room due to migraines once every 10 seconds in the US.
With that in mind, let’s take a moment to list direct migraine treatments that target specific parts of the skull and indirect treatments that are general purpose to help relieve the overall symptoms.
Migraine Treatments and Origin Points
Did you know that headache locations can tell you a lot about the type of migraine treatments you need?
This is a very important part of understanding why the pain is taking place. You can do this by looking at a chart, and breaking the head down into the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal regions of the skull.
Why this is an important exercize is that this kind of pain has a specific pattern that it follows, both in how it expresses itself and its location. Therapies are therefore tailored specifically according to where they come from. This can include pain that affects one or both sides of the head, with an intense, sometimes nauseating pain.
This type of pain most often occurs in the frontal and temporal regions of the skull. Headaches occurring in other parts of the skull may in fact not be migraines, and as a result, require something better directed towards that cause is more effective.
As a final consideration, if the pain has its origin in your neck, then you may have cervicogenic headache, which requires its own special treatments. Interestingly, there are multitudes of head pain categories, so it is important to understand your own unique case so you can address the issue timeously and prevent it from happening again.
Doctor Prescribed Treatments
There are many targeted migraine treatments specifically for those with the corresponding symptoms. For those looking for options linked with seizures, than anticonvulsant drugs like Gabapentin, topiramate, and valproic acid is commonly prescribed by doctors.
Therapies can also include muscle relaxants like baclofen and tizanidine. In addition, antidepressants called SSRIs like fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, and paroxetine can sometimes be used.
All of these may be prescribed by your doctor depending on what the underlying cause for the migraine treatments is.
Over-The-Counter (OTC) Medication
If you are looking for migraine treatments that help to alleviate the symptoms, then you may be in luck, because OTC medications are easily available, and convenient to get hold of from your local pharmacy or drug store.
Painkillers are a great way to lessen the effects and they are far less intense on your body than doctor-prescribed options.
Allergy relief will be among the best options if you suffer from allergies too.
Many of these kinds of options can be bought very easily from your local drug store. However, as we have mentioned, it’s important to assess the underlying causes of your pain, as painkillers will only treat the symptoms.
Home Remedy Treatment Options
There are many headache cures and home remedies that can assist in managing your pain. Some popular home remedies to help alleviate the symptoms include using thyme or rosemary oil. This can be done by rubbing the oil on the sides of your head.
Other natural and often less expensive treatments also include consuming more magnesium and vitamin B2. This is because both of these have been shown to alleviate symptoms. Butterbur extract has also had a positive affect on alleviating symptoms.
Finally, you can consider a variety of teas. These include homemade ginger tea and chamomile tea, which are both known to relax the body and contribute to de-stressing the body. This can definitely help if your pain is stress and anxiety related too!
Conclusion
As we have discussed, there are many different migraine treatments available.
The important thing to do is to make sure that you understand the exact cause of your own pain, to ensure that you can get the right kind of therapy to solve the issue.
As we’ve covered above, different methods might work better for some than others. Some instances may be severe and require prescription medication. Other people might only get this kind of pain every so often and can easily treat themselves with painkillers and home remedies.
The bottom line is that it all comes down to your own specific situation, which includes the type of pain, where the pain originates from and how frequently it occurs. Once you’ve got a better understanding of that, there’s no doubt that you will be able to find an effective solution.
(1) http://www.migraineresearchfoundation.org/fact-sheet.html
