my first choice has always been an aspirin, but most of my coworkers tell me I’m wrong and I should use ibuprofen first.
What’s your take?
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Acetaminophen (Tylenol) if I can’t get it under control without meds but I agree with the other posters about trying to figure out the root cause! For me, the main causes of headaches used to be hormones from the pill until I switched to a different form of birth control (IUD). Nowadays my headaches are mostly dry eye or allergy related so I keep eye drops on hand and take allergy meds and I’m down to headaches once every week or two. Staying hydrated and taking fish oil supplements has also helped my dry eyes.
depending on severity, advil extra strength liquigels for a quick onset headache. If it won’t go away then another advil with a Tylenol at the same time, I call it Advenol.
Well, I’m not in a situation where I can go otc for headaches. I’m already using acetaminophen (paracetamol for the brits) non stop for chronic pain, and I have to save ibuprofen for stuff that never responds to other pain control methods because I’m an old fuck and I’m not supposed to take it at all, and it causes problems when I ignore that and take it anyway.
Luckily, my headaches almost always stem from stress and/or muscle tension in my neck, so it’s very rare they don’t respond to non chemical methods, and I happen to have prescription meds that are prn for those things if I want/need.
But, for headaches, I used to find caffeine more effective than analgesics, nsaid or otherwise. Even when I wasn’t drinking caffeine regularly (which means I know that it wasn’t just caffeine withdrawal causing the headache to begin with), a cup of coffee usually got rise of a headache faster and more thoroughly than NSAIDs.
But it was usually acetaminophen that would be my first pick when I went the OTC pill route. Less likely to irritate my already irritating bowel syndrome issues.
Tbh though, none of the OTC analgesics are great at getting rid of a headache. Some of the older studies and double blind tests I saw put them about the same as placebo for headaches, though that’s been years since I looked up anything about it.
95% of the time, a headache for me means I’m dehydrated. So I drink water + electrolyte drops.
Somewhat in order of action:
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check if I am clenching jaw/grinding my teeth, relax shoulders and neck, center my thoughts, lower blood pressure and pulse
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thoroughly flush sinuses (like spend 20 minutes or more at least)
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drink lots of water/electrolytes and caffeine
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reduce sensory input: dark quiet room with comfortable seating
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double dose of Sudafed and Diclofenac sodium
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jump into traffic
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It depends on the cause, and your own biology.
Aspirin reduces pain signals but also reduces blood clotting, If your headache is from vasculature issues in and around your brain it’s extra insurance.
Acetaminophen just reduces pain signals in the nervous system. It doesn’t have any secondary advantageous effects but it is easier on your stomach.
Ibuprofen reduces pain signals and also as an anti-inflammatory. So if your headache is caused from minor swelling in the head it’s the obvious choice.
I feel like at least in the US most people tend to overtake ibuprofen when they’d probably be better suited with Tylenol or aspirin.
I try to figure out what’s causing it, then treat. I get headaches from eyestrain (so I take addition and focus on something else), allergies (antihistamine/decongestant), sunglare (eyerest), overexertion/dehydration (drink water and take it easy), caffeine withdrawal (drink cola), etc.
Excedrin = Aspirin + Tylenol + Caffeine
Ibuprofen if I’m at work, but at home I usually take a short nap and have some coffee after, which works better for me.
I’ll go plain old paracetamol which works for me most of the time. If that fails then ibuprofen would be my next choice.
Paracetamol is acetaminophen (Tylenol) for those of us in the States.
Cheers!
Motrin(Ibuprofen) because it works better for me, assuming the migraine doesn’t cause me to puke it up right after.
Aspirin has never been of value to me and I would only take it if I had a heart attack.
I’m in too much chronic spinal pain to register a headache. I don’t know why, but the question made me realize I haven’t had a headache in a decade since my broken neck and back. I get to a point where I can’t focus on anything. The anti inflammatory Tylenol Arthritis formula is the most effective by a considerable margin. I don’t have arthritis and am 40. I’ve been on most available pain meds over the last decade, and honestly this one beats most others for me. I used to have headaches, my issues are different but my family basically switched to the same thing too after trying it.
Meloxicam has been a major help in managing my back pain. It’s not recommended to take it regularly since it can cause digestive ulcers like high doses of ibuprofen. But I get bad flare ups with travel and meloxicam is very effective at helping me avoid a flare up.
It might be worth asking your doctor about if they haven’t had you try it before.
As other comments have said, deal with the origin of the pain first, THEN…
If it’s bad enough to take meds but not too bad, then one 500mg paracetamol and 200mg ibuprofen (my go to for pain). The paracetamol will generally be one with some caffeine in it.
If it’s a BAD headache, then 900mg aspirin.
I do have a headache hat which is kept in the fridge.
Not OTC: water and exercise. But hey, keep searching for the “easy” way out.
How unnecessarily condescending.
Are you feeling ok? Do you have a headache that’s making you grumpy?
That’s my take. Take it or leave it.
I just deal with it unless it’s a migraine.
How do you recognize your migraine? And what do you take for it?
I notice changes in sensory processing first. Reading becomes difficult and my eyes lose focus easily/take a long time to focus. I also notice a difference in my thought patterns. My thoughts start to kind of skip around. It becomes hard to concentrate on any single thing, but not in a distracted kind of way. I very much realize that this description is vague and probably doesn’t make sense unless you experience similar migraines. I do also experience visual auras, but those aren’t apparent until the migraine is about to become very painful.
A full blown migraine manifests as sensory processing mapping to pain. Light and sound are unbearable even in relatively moderate amounts. One of the worst migraines I had led to the pressure of my head on the pillow making every hair follicle feel like a a needle poking my scalp. You don’t realize how much your brain autonomously filters out tons of sensory input to keep your focus on a very small slice of interest until the filters break down and let everything through.
Over the counter pain pills do nothing for my migraines. Sensory deprivation and sleep are the only things that can actually stop a migraine for me. I have blackout blinds, a well fitting eye mask, and foam earplugs ready to go. Early detection is very important. If I act as soon as I notice the warning signs, I can usually avoid a full blown migriane. A large glass of water + darkness and silence will usually have me back up in less than an hour. If a migraine gets to the point of pain, I will need sleep to get rid of it and will still feel rather off afterwards. Also falling asleep with a brutal migraine is no easy feat. A catch-22 so to say.
My migraines are actually usually without headache, just a lot of aura. That might sound not so bad, but it’s pretty bad.
They tend to start a bit insidiously, with a little bit of sensitivity to light and sound and, even more so, frequently changing or bright light and fast sound.
That’s when things start to feel overwhelming in my head, so if I’m not being obtuse, I recognize that it’s time to take medication. Sometimes my partner realizes it before I do because I’ll start covering my eyes and just mildly complaining about things being too bright or too much.
Anyway, at that point I take sumatriptan. It requires a prescription, but it’s not expensive. It works like magic for me.
Before I found sumatriptan, I would have to be in a dark, silent room with my head in a pillow.
Many people have auras before and during migraines. These can be visual (seeing colors or black spots or colors/lights look brighter or dimmer), sensory (sensitivity to light/sound), speech-related (difficulty speaking or understanding speech), motor (impairment to movement), and brainstem (vertigo, tinnitus, ataxia, decreased consciousness, etc).
I get sensory, speech related, motor, and possibly some brainstem aura symptoms. You kind of just learn to recognize when a migraine is coming on and not a regular headache.
