The excessive use of something isn’t the answer to all our problems. If a medication could fix us for good, the overuse of the same drug could lead to exceeding the rate of your suffering before taking those pills.
To be precise and clear, all of us often experience a tremendous headache that seems to kill us with unbearable pain. There could be plenty of reasons behind the cause of a headache attack, such as gas or a severe migraine.
We pop a pill that gives us relief from the pain in a few minutes or hours, and we find those pills the ultimate solution to all our problems. But have we ever thought of these relapse headaches as the result of consuming too much pain relief medication?
A term called ‘Medication Overuse Headaches’ has sufficiently gained importance and popularity in the West and the east that has proved that rebound headaches or medication overuse headaches are common among millions of people.
Medication Overuse headache results from long-term headache in a person who experiences pain in their head for almost more than 15 days in a month. These individuals are often diagnosed with migraine or primary type headaches, which involves proper treatment rather than just popping a pill to instantly relieve the pain.
As sources report, out of every 100 people each year, one or two of them suffer or are diagnosed with medication overuse headache. The consumption of pain relief medication seems fair when a person experiences occasional headaches. But it becomes a consistent issue; taking pain relief drugs might lead the way to another problem and trigger the previous one even more.
Other than the issue of a consistent headache, or we might say a headache disorder, people who consume pain-relieving drugs for arthritis are also later on diagnosed with medication overuse headache.
After getting diagnosed with MOH, if you are consuming more pain relievers, it only triggers the ache even more and shows signs such as nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, insomnia, restlessness, etc. The condition is majorly observed in women and people who suffer from anxiety or depression. The best way to get relief from medication overuse headache is to stop taking pain medication.
The Causes of Medication Overuse Headache
Since the exact reason for medication overuse headache is still unknown to the experts, it is believed that a strong and acute pain reliever might be the reason for an extreme triggered headache in a person. The drugs have been known to be the root cause of increasing headaches.
Some of the medications are as follow:
- Combination Pain Relieving Drugs
Certain commonly used combined pain-relieving medications are prescribed or consumed over-the-counter to cure headaches, such as caffeine, aspirin, and acetaminophen. These drugs are the main culprit for medication overuse headache.
Another compound in a medication known as Butalbital has a high risk of causing MOH in an individual. Putting a stop to these drugs can solve the condition.
- Anti-Migraine Medications
Migraine medicine has been one of the leading causes of medication overuse headache. Migraine could be a long-term condition in people, and people often rely on pain-relieving medicine to cure their headaches. But they are potential reasons for a worsening ache in their head.
Another compound in these medicine known as ergotamine is known to have risk factors and lead to MOH in people. The overuse of drugs such as Imitrex, Zomig, etc., could lead to medication overuse headache, and avoiding these medications can make a difference.
- Opiates Medication
codeine and acetaminophen obtained from opium are the medications consumed by people to relieve themselves from a severe or long-term headache. These medications can have their side-effect in the form of medication overuse headache. So avoiding these medications could help a lot.
Exceeding the dosage of these medicines as prescribed could cause significant trouble where there might be rebound headache with no cure but only to take stop from consuming these medicines. Apart from this, people who are more into coffee and other caffeinated products might also put themselves at the risk of rebound headaches.
Symptoms
MOH’s symptoms differ in people depending on whether they have any prevailing headache-related condition such as a migraine, which probably requires long-term treatment and following a specific routine in their life. Moreover, individual suffering from MOH might experience:
- Headache during the early morning while they wake up from sleep.
- The occurrence of headache nearly every day
- As soon as a pain reliever is consumed, the ache goes away until the effect of medicine finally wears off, and the headache returns.
- Feeling of nausea
- Memory issues
- Inability to concentrate correctly etc.
How to prevent or treat Medication Overuse Headaches
There are a few things to take-up and do while trying to prevent medication Overuse Headaches:
- Take the dosage of the medicine as prescribed by the health expert.
- Avoid taking over-the-counter medications not more than once or twice in 15 days.
- Talk to your physician if there is a consistent ache in your head, and you have the urge to take the pain relievers.
- Avoid all the compounds mentioned above available in any pain relievers, making the headache even worse.
- Keep the sleep cycle as consistent as possible
- visit the doctor if you have a chronic headache condition to know what is causing it and get treatment.
- Keep the timing of each of your meals as consistent as possible.
- Try therapies or other methods for managing your stress, which could lead to reducing severe and consistent headaches.
- Keeping yourself hydrated help in dealing with all kinds of health condition and headache is no different.
- Indulge yourself in more physical activity and such as walking, swimming, running, etc.
- Maintain a dairy if it help[s to note down all your days of headache and for how long they occurred it gives you an idea on how to manage it and whether or not you should meet your doctor.
All these methods could help in reducing medication overuse and curing the headache for good.
