Top Headache Treatment Options For Quick Headache Relief

The first and the foremost thing that you want is relief from your headache. That too, any how! “Very quickly please, there is no time to think—I can withstand it no more!” such is a reaction of anyone suffering of the bouts of headache. At such stressful periods, your mind ceases to function, you want cure for the headache first, all other discussions later!

Here I am taking up the three top headache treatment options. They are: Alternative remedies, Chiropractice, Hypnosis and Acupuncture Therapy.

Alternative Remedies
Apart from the galaxy of over the counter products, which claim to be panacea for your headache, there are some tried and tested herbal remedies which will help you without fault.

1. For fast headache relief, Chinese pressure points can be used. But identification of those pressure points is of utmost important. This help should be sought from the experts in this art only.

2. You can also make use of the analgesic and cooling properties of betel leaf. For this, apply it over the pain affected area and get the sought after relief from the intense headache.

3. Instead you can also use some common household remedies for headache relief. Apply the paste of clove and salt crystals made in milk. Salt which is a hygroscopic agent absorbs the fluid and decreases all your tension and headache.

4. For headache that is caused by the heat of the sun, use henna flowers. Make a plaster of henna flowers mixed in vinegar and apply it over the forehead to get the relief.

Chiropractice
Muscle pain, due to poor posture, is also a common cause of headache. Chiropractice may help you reduce your headaches if you do the job of sitting at a particular place for long periods, like work at a computer or perform repetitive motions.

Hypnosis
There is nothing to be alarmed about hypnosis headache treatment. There are likely to be no side effects, in this therapy. But success depends to a large extent on the responsiveness of an individual. Many compare hypnosis with relaxation therapy.

Acupuncture Therapy
Another therapy doing the most accepted rounds in the headache circles is Acupuncture Therapy. It is believed to be very effective in tension-type headaches and migraines. The needles used in the therapy deal with your nervous system directly.

You may wonder—one headache, and how many types of treatment! The fact is that the reasons for headache vary from individual to individual, and the treatments have got to be very special because you are a very special individual, and you deserve a special headache relief package!

Coronary Artery Disease

The coronary arteries are the blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscle, and when they become diseased, the heart muscle is at great risk. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the single largest killer of American women (and men). In 2001, almost 250,000 American women died from CAD.

"Typical" CAD

CAD occurs when part of the smooth, elastic lining inside a coronary artery develops atherosclerosis. With atherosclerosis, the artery's lining becomes hardened, stiffened, and swollen with all sorts of "grunge" - including calcium deposits, fatty deposits, and abnormal inflammatory cells - to form a plaque. Plaques can be thought of as large "pimples" that protrude into the channel of an artery, causing a partial obstruction to blood flow.

Patients with CAD might have just one or two plaques, or might have dozens distributed throughout their coronary arteries.

Angina

If a plaque becomes large enough, under conditions of exercise or stress it may prevent the heart muscle from receiving all the blood it needs. The symptoms caused by the oxygen-starved heart muscle is called angina. Angina typically is felt as "heavy" left-sided chest pain, most often pressure-like in character, which can radiate to the jaw or left arm. Usually angina is relieved within a few minutes by resting.

Myocardial infarction (MI,) or heart attack

Sometimes a plaque will suddenly rupture. Blood is then exposed to the "grunge" inside the plaque, and begins to clot; soon the clot blocks the artery. The portion of heart muscle supplied by the occluded artery starts to die, and unless blood flow is restored within a few hours, the damage to the heart muscle becomes permanent. This event (permanent heart muscle damage caused by an occluded coronary artery) is called a myocardial infarction (MI,) or heart attack.
The symptoms of an acute MI usually are similar to those of angina, but are much more severe and persistent, and are often accompanied by lightheadedness, nausea, sweating, and a sense of impending doom. If the patient survives the MI itself, the resulting heart muscle damage can lead to chronic heart failure or fatal heart rhythm disturbances.

Unstable angina

Unlike typical angina, unstable angina most often occurs at rest. It is usually caused by small transient blood clots forming at the site of a partially-ruptured plaque. When the clot forms, angina occurs; when the clot dissolves the angina disappears. The main differences between unstable angina and an acute MI are that in unstable angina the clot does not fully occlude the artery, and the episode is transient. Indeed, unstable angina can be thought of as a self-terminating MI. Unstable angina frequently presents as a series of attacks, and if untreated will often culminate in a true MI. This condition is a medical emergency - treatment is very similar to that for an acute MI

Diagnosing CAD

Noninvasive testing: Exercise testing (or stress testing) is often helpful in diagnosing CAD. If exercise reproduces the patient's angina and if typical changes are seen on the electrocardiogram (ECG,) the diagnosis of CAD can be made with some confidence.

When added to a stress test, an echocardiogram or a thallium study can improve its diagnostic accuracy. The echocardiogram creates an image of the beating heart using sound waves. Any abnormal movement in the heart muscle during exercise suggests CAD. Thallium is a radioactive substance that is injected into a vein during exercise, and is distributed to the heart muscle by the coronary arteries, thus allowing the heart to be imaged. Portions of the heart muscle fed by partially blocked coronary arteries show up as dark spots.

Invasive testing: If noninvasive testing suggests the presence of significant CAD, coronary angiography is often performed. In this test, catheters are positioned within the coronary arteries and dye is injected. X-rays are then taken to visualize the arteries and localize any blockages. Coronary angiography is considered the "gold standard" for diagnosing CAD.

Women and Heart Disease

In this special section of the Heart Disease and Cardiology website, we'll deal specifically with the issue of heart disease in women. A special section is warranted because of two common misapprehensions held by both women and their doctors. These are that women don't really get much heart disease, and when they do, it behaves pretty much like the heart disease that men get. The real facts are that: a) heart disease is the number one killer of women, and b) when women get heart disease it often presents quite differently than it does in men. Failing to understand these two fundamental facts leads to a lot of preventable deaths and disability in women with heart disease.

In a recent survey conducted by the American Heart Association, 6 in 10 women said that the major threat to their health was breast cancer; only 1 in 10 said it was heart disease.

But in 1999, while cancer was killing 264,000 American women (41,000 of whom died of breast cancer,) cardiovascular disease killed 513,000 - and it's the same story every year. In fact, each year since 1984 even more women than men have died of heart disease. Many doctors don't get it either. Less than half the doctors in one recent survey considered heart disease to be a major threat to their female patients. Worse, less than half of all women receiving regular medical care say that their doctors have ever talked to them about reducing their risk of heart disease. Worst of all, the symptoms of heart disease - and even the heart disease itself - can be quite different in women than in men. And since medical textbooks almost exclusively describe "typical" heart disease (that is, the kind men get,) doctors often fail to recognize heart disease when they see it in their female patients. The fact that heart disease is so common in women, and at the same time is underestimated and misunderstood by both women and their doctors, contributes in no small way to the high death rate.

The purpose of this special section is to tell women what they need to know about heart disease. There is a lot of information on this website about heart disease in general, but here, we'll emphasize the characteristics of the heart disease women get, trying to point out how heart disease in women is different from heart disease in men. We'll examine the differences in risk factors, in the symptoms of heart disease, in the diagnosis of heart disease, and in the heart diseases themselves. It is very important for women to understand this information - especially because there's a good chance their doctors don't.

Useful terms

The terms disease, disorder, medical condition are often used interchangeably. There is no agreed-upon universal distinction between these terms, though some people do make distinctions in particular contexts.

Medical usage sometimes distinguishes a disease, which has a known specific cause or causes (called its etiology), from a syndrome, which is a collection of signs or symptoms that occur together. However, many conditions have been identified, yet continue to be referred to as "syndromes." Furthermore, numerous conditions of unknown etiology are referred to as "diseases" in many contexts. Refractory diseases do not respond to therapy by overcoming the resistance to drugs.

Illness, although often used to mean disease, can also refer to a person's perception of their health, regardless of whether they in fact have a disease. A person without any disease may feel unhealthy and simply have the perception of having an illness. Another person may feel healthy with similar perceptions of perfectly good health. The individual's perception of good health may even persist with the medical diagnosis of having a disease; for example, such as dangerously high blood pressure, which may lead to a fatal heart attack or stroke.

Pathology is the study of diseases. The subject of systematic classification of diseases is referred to as nosology. The broader body of knowledge about human diseases and their treatments is medicine. Many similar (and a few of the same) conditions or processes can affect non-human animals (wild or domestic). The study of diseases affecting animals is veterinary medicine.

Disease can be thought of as the presence of pathology, which can occur with or without subjective feelings of being unwell or social recognition of that state. Illness as the subjective state of "unwellness" can occur independently of, or in conjunction with, disease or sickness (with sickness the social classification of someone deemed diseased, which can also occur independently of the presence or absence of disease or illness (c.f. subjective medical conditions). Thus, someone with undetected high blood pressure who feels to be of good health would be diseased, but not ill or sick. Someone with a diagnosis of late-stage cancer would be diseased, probably feeling quite ill, and recognized by others as sick. A person incarcerated in a totalitarian psychiatric hospital for political purposes could arguably be then said to not be diseased, nor ill, but only classified as sick by the rulers of a society with which the person did not agree. Having had a bad day after a night of excess drinking, one might feel ill, but one would not be diseased, nor is it likely that a boss could be convinced of the sickness.

CAUSES OF DISEASE

Many different factors intrinsic or extrinsic to a person (or plant or animal) can cause disease. Examples of intrinsic factors are genetic defects or nutritional deficiencies. Examples of extrinsic factors are environmental Many diseases result from a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. For many diseases a cause cannot be identified

There are many different factors that can cause disease. These can be broadly categorized into the following categories like social, psychological, chemical and biological. Some factors may fall into more than one category. Biochemical causes of disease can be considered as a spectrum where at one extreme disease is caused entirely by genetic factors (e.g. CAG repeats in the Huntingtin gene that causes Huntington's Disease) and at the other extreme is caused entirely by environmental factors. Environmental factors include toxic chemicals (e.g. acetaldehyde in cigarette smoke and dioxins released from the breakdown of Agent Orange) and infectious agents (e.g. smallpox virus and poliovirus). In between these extremes genes (e.g. NOD2/CARD15) and environmental factors (e.g. Gut microbiota) interact to cause disease, as seen for example in the inflammatory bowel disease Crohn's Disease .

Some diseases, not illustrated here, also have a social and psychological basis.Absence of the genetic or environmental factors in this case results in disease not being manifest. Koch's postulates can be used to determine whether a disease is caused by an infectious agent.

To determine whether a disease is caused by genetic factors, researchers study the pattern inheritance of the disease in families. This provides qualitative information about the disease (how it is inherited). A classic example of this method of research is inheritance of hemophilia in the British Royal Family. More recently this research has been used to identify the Apoliprotein E (ApoE) gene as a susceptibility gene for Alzheimer's Disease, though some forms of this gene - ApoE2 - are associated with a lower susceptibility. To determine to what extent a disease is caused by genetic factors (quantitative information), twin studies are used. Monozygotic twins are genetically identical and likely share a similar environment whereas dizygotic twins are genetically similar and likely share a similar environment. Thus by comparing the incidence of disease (termed concordance rate) in monozygotic twins with the incidence of disease in dizygotic twins, the extent to which genes contribute to disease can be determined. Candidate disease genes can be identified using a number of methods. One is to look for mutants of a model organism (e.g. the organisms Mus musculus,Drosophila melanogaster, Caenhorhabditis elegans,Brachydanio rerio and Xenopus tropicalis) that have a similar phenotype to the disease being studied. Another approach is to look for segregation of genes or genetic markers (e.g. single nucleotide polymorphism or expressed sequence tag) .

A large number of SNPs spaced throughout the genome have been identified recently in a large project called the HapMap project . The usefulness of the HapMap project and SNP typing and their relevance to society was covered in the 27th October 2005 issue of the leading international science journal Nature (journal).

A large number of genes have been identified that contribute to human disease. These are avaialble from the US National Library of Medicine, which has an impressive range of biological science resources available for free online. Amongst these resources is Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man - OMIM that provides a very, very comprehensive list of all known human gene mutations associated with, and likely contributing to, disease. Each article at OMIM is regularly updated to include the latest scientific research. Additionally, each article provides a detailed history of the research on a given disease gene, with links to the research articles. This resource is highly valuable and is used by the world's top science researchers