Headaches: Ayurveda Treatments

Headaches: Ayurvedic Treatment options

Headaches are mainly caused due to Migraines, cluster type headaches, trigeminal neuralgia or tension headaches. Ayurveda compliments conventional system in managing most these devastating conditions to reduce the disability and burden due to disease by promoting health through herbs, lifestyle, and diet recommendations. Ayurvedic Panchakarma (Detox Methods) sometimes helpful, but need to do under qualified and experienced practitioner with proper recommendations.

A migraine headache

Common in females than males, the migraine headaches is the one type which is most debilitating and causes significant disability. According to Ayurveda, this condition is denoted as “SOORYAVARTHA SOOLA”= Surya means “SUN” and avaratha means arise or affliction, which indicates the symptoms of photophobia, means the aggravation in the pain with light. However, the type of pain and incidence rates may vary with Individual constitution according to Ayurvedic medicine.

Headache

Nausea, vomiting, photophobia and scintillating scotoma are some of the symptoms of Migraine headache, usually advised in Modern medicine drugs are serotonin 1B or 1D agonists and triptans. According to Ayurveda, the well-explained treatment and diet restrictions will of very helpful in managing migraine headaches, the role of Panchakarma in the management of migraine headaches attracted prime importance lately due to the failure of most conventional treatments in providing optimal health benefits.

Cluster Headaches

Common in females than males, cluster headache is most debilitating than migraine headaches and last longer than a migraine, and they come in episodes or cluster. It could be of two different types episodic or chronic. Episodic type usually stays for weeks or a month with short pain-free periods, whereas the chronic type usually stays for the whole year with one-year remission. It varies with time, season, sometimes it mimics as symptoms of allergies and stress headaches. Unfortunately, the exact cause is still unknown.

Unilateral pain and pain in the eye and temple area, pain is often severe, explosive and throbbing, also called as suicidal headaches. This is less common in Migraine headaches and tension headaches. The conventional treatment is using Oxygen, tryptans, B- blockers and Steroids will of beneficial.

According to Ayurveda, “ Siro soola” which denotes generalized headaches, need a proper lifestyle change, which includes constitutional eating habits, avoids cold foods, left over foods, spicy and fried foods and vata aggravating behaviors and food. A systematic evaluation by a qualified Ayurvedic physician and followed by Ayurvedic recommendation such as herbs like Bramhi, dasmoola, aswaganda ect with external treatments such as Shirodhara, shiro vasti will be useful to address the symptoms.

Trigeminal Neuralgia

TN is a Vth cranial nerve disorder it could be due to compression or herniation or demylenation or pressure on nerve, exact reason is still unknown, it can evaluated by MRI and imaging techniques. The main symptoms include intense episodic pain, stabbing pain, pain looks like an electric shock and it may involve V1, V2 or V3 branches of trigeminal nerve, but most commonly it is due to V2 and V3 branches. The symptoms of numbness and pain depend on the branch involved.

The conventional treatment usually advising antiepileptic medicines, according to Ayurveda this condition is treated as “VATAJA SHIROSOOLA” and treatments may include Panchakarma and advising herbs such as Bramhi, Aswagandha and Jatamansi etc.

Tension headaches

Mild to moderate pain around the head- it is holocranial headache, means it feels like band around the head. Usually due to stress, inadequate sleep, posture or driving etc, according to Ayurveda, irregular life style, no physical activity or excess physical activity, eating wrong diet and eating while doing other work etc. Predominantly it is due to VATA aggravation.

The treatment should aim to balance VATA, following vata balancing diet and lifestyle will be really useful and regular INDIAN HEAD MASSAGE (Shiro Abhyangam ) or Pada abhyanagam (FOOT MASSAGE) will be of great help in managing this type of headaches.

You may ask your personal query to Dr Kumar via Email drkumar@jeevahealth.com.au or by phone 0402 282 745/ 03 99399474 or 02 6156 0618 regarding any of your health problems. You will be offered authentic Ayurvedic information and an opinion, as to what best can be done pertaining to your ailment.