Headaches Run in the Family

We have a long history of headaches in my family. My father gets sinus headaches. My nephew gets migraines. I get tension headaches. The interesting thing, however, is that until I began to guide this site, I didn't truly understand the cause and treatment of chronic headaches. Considering how long my family has been dealing with them, this came as a bit of a shock.

When I first began receiving treatment for my tension headaches, it was commonly thought that they were caused by muscle tension. I felt I was under a lot of pressure at the time, and my doctor attributed them to stress. I got a prescription for a strong NSAID, and another for a muscle relaxer. The medications helped relieve my headache pain, but they did nothing to prevent them. Since living stress-free at the time was not really an option (I was working hard to get accepted into my occupational therapy program), I thought I would have chronic tension headaches for the rest of my life.

Today, however, newer research indicates that what we used to think caused certain types of headaches is not necessarily accurate. In fact, I detailed many of these new findings in one of my headache articles. Interestingly, while stress may be a trigger of tension headaches, other more likely triggers are caffiene, fatigue and eye strain. You know, I was a college student at the time I was diagnosed. That trigger list sounds like one of my typical school days! It's funny how things change with a little research.