BLOOD PRESSURE HEADACHES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21118, 27 February 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

BLOOD PRESSURE HEADACHES.

The first principle of the treatment lies along purely general lines. Most important of all, worry must be, so far as possible, eliminated. Business should be jiut out of the mind completely during the luncheon interval, on returning home at night, and on going away for week-ends and .holidays. Week-ends should become a regular habit; and holidays should be taken more frequently than before. Unnecessary and excessive physical e.xei cise should be avoided; but, on the other hand, it is a mistake to take no exercise at all. Play one round instead of two at golf or nine holes instead of eighteen. Early morning cold baths should be stopped. Over-eating is to be avoided; and the 'amount of alcohol drunk, if previously liberal, should be moderated. A great effort should be made to get ample sleep; and if this is a difficulty it is certainly the right thing to ask your doctor for an efficient sleeping draught. Nothing is worse for this condition than sleepless or short nights. Drugs for reducing blood pressure are Usually inefficient, the measures already described are the most likely to effect a reduction in it. But not infrequently drugs may be of assistance in relieving the main symptoms, to wit, the headache. Various drugs of the nitrate group, which should only be taken with a doctor's prescription, arc helpful; and particularly so if taken first thing m the morning directly'the patient wakes and before he rises. Another dnig which is sometimes even more efficacious is "Chloral Hydrate" (again to be given bv a physician), taken twice a day It is further most important to keep the bowels active, say, with a teaspoonful of magnesium sulphate each morning. Finally, it is sometimes better to drink between and not with one's meals.