Homeopathy Treatment of Headache

Many patients comes to my clinic daily for their chronic Headache, few of them are very depressed as because due to their pain they can not performed their daily routine work normally .

It's  rare that one should never, been suffered from headache. Indeed, so common is it that a headache at sometime can be viewed as a normal phenomenon. A lifetime prevalence study revealed that a many as 93 per cent of men experienced a headache at some time; the most common cause being tension-type headache (69 percent). For women, the lifetime prevalence was 99 percent, again tension-type headache being  the most common (88 percent) .Although such a high prevalence suggests a commonplace, almost trivial, symptom it can nevertheless be a symptom of grave significance. It is thus a major cause for attendance in neurological outpatient clinics, representing approximately 15 percent of routine neurological attendance (Murray 1977; Perkin 1989) and reflecting the anxiety amongst both patients and doctors that headache may be due to sinister cause. Thus every patient with headache requires careful consideration and sometimes thorough investigation

Although most patients with headache will not contact their doctor, those with frequent headache, and those with migraine constitute a significant public health and economic problem. A pharmoco-economic study of migraine in the USA calculated that the annual loss of productivity due to migraine cost more than $1 billion per year (stang et al. 1996) and some studies have suggested that the cost might be as much as $47 billion per year (Osterhaus at al 1992).

Classification

In 1985, the international Headache society (IHS) established a classification committee which published the first international headache classification in 1988, including operational diagnostic criterial (Headache classification committee of the international headache society 1988) This has been adopted by the world federation of Neurology and the world Health Organization, which has incorporated the main features in the international classification of disease (ICD-10). The classification provides 13 broad categories which are then subdivided cation provides 13 broad categories which are then subdivided to allow for coding up to a four-digit level. The extent to the subclassification thus depends upon the degree of sophistication required. The classification has been an important advance, primarily for research but increasingly for clinical management. It is gradually replacing the previous variable terminology which included classic migraine, classical migraine, combined headache, psychogenic headache, and essential headache.

Revisions of the IHS classification have been proposed. For example, refocusing on the old problem of patient with very frequent headache, often referred to as chronic daily headache (silberstein et al. 1994, 1995), or addition of new entries, such as the short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing (SUNCT) syndrome (Goadsby and Lipton 1997).

Classification of headache (data from headache classification committee of the international Headache society 1988)

Migraine

Tension-type headache

Cluster headache and chronic paroxysmal hemicrania

Headache associated with head trauma

headache associated with vascular disorders

Headache associated with non-vascular intracranial disorders

Headache associated with substances and their withdrawal

Headache associated with non-cephalic infection

Headache associated with metabolic abnormality

Headache or facial pain associated with disorders of cranium, neck, eyes, ears, nose sinuses, sinuses, teeth, mouth, or other facial or cranial structures

Cranial neuralgia's, nerve truck pain, and differentiation pain

Other types of headache of facial pain

Headache not classifiable


All the tissues covering the cranium are sensitive to pain, especially the arteries but also the muscles and pericardium. The skull bone itself is insensitive. Within the cranium, the venous sinuses and their tributaries, the dura mater and the cerebral arteries, and the fifth, ninth, and tenth cranial nerves are the chief pain-sensitive structures. The main factors causing headache (Lance 1981) have been considered to be:

(1)     Inflammation involving pain-sensitive structures of the head;
(2)     referred pain;
(3)     meningeal irritation;
(4)     traction on or dilatation of blood vessels;
(5)     pressure upon or distortion of pain-sensitive structures caused by tumors or other lesions; and
(6)     psychological causes, when the pain is considered in some instances to be due to tension in the muscles of the scalp and neck.

on the basis of symptoms totality & with considerations of different causes if Homeopathic medicines are given it can be helpful to the patients suffering from Headache

several Homeopathic Medicines which has proven result on headache can be used - Belladona, Aconite, Allium Cepa, Ignatia Phosphorus, Hepar Sulph, Silicia, Spigellia, Sanguneria,  Thuja, Staphys, Sulphure & Nux Vomica etc.