Natural headache remedies

Everyone has experienced a headache at some point. Yet for some, chronic headaches or migraines are a fact of life. In Canada alone it is estimated that over 5 million people suffer from chronic headaches.

Instead of struggling through your day with a headache or feeling foggy due to medication side effects, identifying your headache triggers and implementing natural approaches can provide great relief.

Headache categories
There are three major categories of headaches:

1. Tension headaches
Tension headaches are the most common type of headache. Symptoms typically include a dull, nonthrobbing pain in the back of the neck or in a "headband" distribution.

2. Migraines
Migraine headaches, which can be quite debilitating, often begin on one side of the head and can worsen due to exposure to bright lights, sounds or smell. Symptoms may also include loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting or changes in vision.

3. Cluster headaches
Cluster headaches are extremely painful one-sided headaches that occur in small clusters of several headaches in a short period of time, followed by a period of remission where headaches do not occur for weeks or months.

Headache triggers
Common headache triggers include:
• High levels of stress
• Poor eating and sleeping patterns
• Dietary triggers such as food additives or preservatives
• Medications
• Environmental factors
• Hormones

Food triggers
There is a variety of chemicals and preservatives found in food that have been shown to be headache triggers. These include:

• Foods that contain a member of the amine group of organic chemical compounds, called tyramine. These foods include chocolate, aged cheese, vinegar, alcohol, sour cream and soy sauce.

• Meat products that contain nitrates. Nitrates are put into meats to keep their color pink. However, in addition to being carcinogenic (potentially cancer causing), one of the other possible side effects of meats containing nitrates is headaches. Meat products that commonly contain nitrates include hot dogs, bacon, corned beef, bologna and pastrami. Nitrate-free meats are now available in most stores wherever meat is sold.

• The flavour-enhancing chemical monosodium glutamate (MSG) has also been documented to be a headache trigger for some people.

• Ingestion of the artificial sweetener aspartame has been shown to trigger migraines in a small proportion of people.

Page 1 of 2