Tension Headaches Symptoms

Nov 12th, 2009

Many people experience headaches once in a while. Because of stress, sickness, dehydration, high blood pressure or other causes. What many people don’t know is that there are many different ways how you can experience a headache. You can have a headache on different locations in your brain and in different perceptions. One type of headache that many people experience is tension headache. This article will explain tension headaches symptoms and possible treatments.

Tension headaches are the most common type of headaches. Approximately 90% of all headaches are tension headaches. The pain causes by this type is often radiated from the eyes, back, neck or other muscle groups in your body.

Tension Headaches Symptoms

A typical tension headache is experienced as if something is pressing on your head or a hat that is too tight. You will feel the pain at both sides of your head, this is called bilateral.

We speak of a chronic headache when they occur for more than 15 days in a month. It is episodic when it is less than 15 days. A tension headache normally lasts between 4 to 6 hours. However it can last from a few minutes to days, months and even years.

It is not exactly clear what causes a tension headache. However, there seems to be a relation between pressure in the neck, back and shoulders and the onset of the headache. When someone is sitting behing his computer for too long he may cause pressure in his eyes , shoulders or back that may result in a headache.

Treatment

The common treatment for tension headaches is aspirin and ibuprofen or sort alike medication.  However, when you have rebound headaches than taking medication every time is not a good idea. Your liver, kidneys and stomach are only able to handle a certain amount of medicines. When you have chronic headaches than it is wise to search for other treatment methods.

The best treatment method would be the removal of the thing that is causing the headaches. Sometimes there is another disorder that causes the headache. However, sometimes it is idiopathic and that means that we don’t know where it comes from and why it acts so frequently. In this case it is wise to seek out methods that will help you cope with the pain. Yoga techniques have proven that when you are able to relax your body the pain will go away for a short while.

Other popular treatments are spinal manipulation, manual therapy and soft issue therapy. Although it is not proven that these methods work, some people seem to have some benefit from it.

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