HEADACHES AS SIGNALS

Southland Times, Issue 18936, 24 September 1920, Page 2

HEADACHES AS SIGNALS

VALUABLE DANGER SIGNAL, AMERICAN DOCTOR’S STATEMENT. “Headaches are useful. They are only the red flag hung out as a sign that some organ is functioning abnormally. They are not diseases, but always symptoms. A headache has a virtue, because it leads you to search out the causative factor. It is not an enemy, but our friend.” This and other interesting and comforting comment on that universally hated and feared human ailment known as the headache is provided in a recent article by Dr A. W. Herr, of Cleveland, in the Western Medical Times (U.S.A.).

Dr Herr takes the position that the majority of headaches arc of that class which have their genesis in wrong living and wrong habits; so that in the great preponderance of instances a mere correction of the irregularity will relieve the headache. “Very much can he learned as to the source of the trouble by its relative location in the head,” he writes. “For instance, the majority of the people are aware that, an ache in the forehead is usually due to disorder of the stomach or bowels, but if situated to one side in the region of the temples and coming on more or less periodically it indicates some error of refraction which can be corrected by the wearing of a proper lens. “Now, not all are headaches. They are just as likely as not to be found elsewhere. For instance the ache about the size of a dollar on the vertex of the head does not indicate any disorder of the brain. Or, as in the case of a sick headache, the head is not the organ that is sick but the stomach instead. The ache of the stomach is in the head. In other words, it is not a headache at all. It is a stomachache in head The pain is reflected from the the head. The pain is reflected from the stomach along the track of the pneurnogastric nerve in the head. This can be easily remedied in the case of migraine, or sick headache, by the administering of a lavage of the stomach. A washing out of the retained and fermenting food masses will relieve irritation of the stomach nerves and in a few minutes the headache will disappear. EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL. “Cephalalgias or headaches may roughly be classified into external and internal. The seat of the external may be in the muscuiaris of the cranium or iu the periosteum, or in the nerves themselves, due to irritation of the branches of the fifth cranial nerve. The internal forms arc also divisible into three classifications. First, the congestive where there is a pain of the whole head from forehead to occiput. Second, organic. Third, dyspeptic, in which is included sick headache, or migraine. “Dividing headaches as to causes we would say;— “The haemic causes, such as anaemia, congestion and blood dyscrasias, as gout, rheumatism, diabetes and fevers. “The toxic causes, as lead, alcohol or tobacco. “Nervous states, as epilepsy, neurasthenia and hysteria. “Reflex causes, as ocular, dyspeptic or sexuaL “Organic causes, as meningitis. 'So far as location in the head is concerned, headaches are divided into frontal, occipital, parietal, temporal, vertical and diffuse. “The pain of headache is:— “Pulsating and throbbing, as in migraine. “Dull, heavy and splitting, as in the toxic or dyspeptic. “Squeezing and pressing as in the neurotic. “Hot, burning, and sore, as in the rheumatic and anaemic. “Sharp and boring, as in hysteria and epilepsy, so says Dana. REMOVE THE CAUSE. “The first aid to the headache invalid is to remove the cause. But very often the cause lies a little closer than we are willing to acknowledge. Many women suffer from headaches because their husbands smoke in the house. She breathes the poison of the smoke when fresh, and, still worse, the dead smoke that remains in the house day and night, or she may have a headache, a toxic one, from the free use of coffee and tea. Many a headache is relieved by prohibiting the use of these beverages, which are nerve stimulants due to the caffein and their content, and to switch off to chocolate is not improving the case, for thein and tannic acid are both present here. Drinking debauches usually end up with the worst kind of a splitting headache, proving the toxic effect of alcohol. “It is the reflex headache cases that we find the most persistent and aggravating; and it is here that we find the greatest difficuly in diagnosing the real cause of the trouble which gives rise. to the headache. Aftsr excluding ail toxic and organic causes, we are forced to the conclusion that it is reflex, and just here is where our trouble begins. WHERE DOES IT ORIGINATE? • “Why distant organs produce pain in the head we may not always know, But the carriers of pain from the distant organ keep pounding away for relief until the very head aches. We ask. Is it from the stom- , aeh, hj crania os kidnap or is it from, tome

source in the head itself, as the ear, nose, throat, teeth, or eyes?’ By exclusion and by knowing the nature of the pain and its location in the head we may determine its source. “Pelvic disorders usually give the pain in the occiput or vertex of the head. Headaches from indigestion are usually frontal. Nasal headaches are usually over the eye or at the root of the nose, and ,if located in the antrum or sinuses are usually unilateral. ‘Throat aches,’ as from tonsils or adenoids, are diffuse on the head. The teeth produce a one-sided neuralgic headache, and the eye, the most important organ of the body, is usually the cause of most reflex headaches. Eye-strain headaches are either frontal, temporal or occipital and often extend in the back of the eyeballs. From the fact that eye strain as well as dilated stomach will produce sick headache there is often a chance for confusion, and in every such case it is well to test the eye as a means of exclusion before proceeding with stomach treatment. THE EYE’S NERVE SUPPLY. “To the eye and its appendages are distributed one-half of the cranial nerves. To no other organ are so many important nerves supplied, for the eye is on duty every waking moment. “Headache is the most common of all pain. The head aches more than all the rest of the bodpy put together. One touch of headache makes the whole world kin. And the person who has never suffered a headache is rare. “As a rule, when the head aches it is not its own fault; it is usually made the scapegoat for some other part of the body. - In place of being the master, as it should be, it is made to be the servant. The least organ of the body can order the head to ache for it and it has to obey. “Nor is it the brain, as it is commonly supposed, that is aching. It is usually the scalp or the branches of the fifth row of cranial nerves that is the seat of the ache, as the brain is comparatively insensitive to pain. “When the head aches, usually the entire body aches with it, but the surface nerves of the head, being so sensitive, are able to express themselves more promptly and clearly than other parts of the body. POPULAR THEORIES UPSET. “The popular idea of a headache is that there is congestion of blood in the brain. This ha? been disproved by the fact that the head may ache in anaemic conditions of the brain, proving that the question of blood pressure is not the important factor in producing the ache. It is, rather, dependent upon the poisons produced, which irritate the great blood vessels, particularly those in (he region of the scalp. “It is true that a cold cloth tightly wrappier around the head will give some temporary relief by its benumbing pressure upton the surface nerve, but the relief will be only temporary at best. “Headache is a sign of poison. It is a sign that the body is fighting vigorously against an enemy within, some toxic element, and this view of headaches explain? why they are so frequent and varied in their causation. HEADACHE OUR FRIEND. *But one thought that stands out boldly and clearly is that headaches always have a meaning, that a thorough investigation should be instituted so as to discover, if possible, the cause. It is a red light hung out; it is a sign of danger inside. So a headache is one of the most-useful things in the world, for it signals—danger ahead. It is not an enemy, it is our friend. “Our body produces sufficient poison in 24 hours to kill us, and if in addition to this normal production of poison additional poisons are added to the sum total, the nervous system will feel the effect. “In the treatment -of • headaches there is but one axiom, i.e., remove the cause. If due to eye strain, go to an oculist and get a correction of vision. In a migraine, or sick headache, a lavage of the stomach will afford timely relief, but there, must be a correction of the dilation of the stomach which invariably accompanies chronic cases of migraine before-there will be a permanency of relief.”