We collected information about various non-pharmacological measures adopted by the patients during headache that included avoidance of certain food items that precipitated headache, use of wet towel or cold pack over head, avoiding the sun, lying quiet, tying a tight cloth around the forehead, traditional head and neck massage and local application of use of medicated oil.
Interictal anxiety increased markedly with headache intensity and frequency, avoidance less so but still significantly.
Among those with migraine, interictal anxiety increased markedly with headache intensity and frequency, avoidance less so but still significantly.
The focus should be not only on the avoidance of headache triggers, but the therapy also working on active management and coping of headche [45].
In addition to the limitations of sample size, the educational control CD-ROM program had some potentially active treatment elements, such as information on diet, sleep, and avoidance of headache triggers.
Thus, avoidance of acute headache medication overuse and increased use of prophylactic medication may improve the management of primary chronic headaches in the future.
The authors state that these do not seem to occur with triptan usage limited to no more than 10 days per month, a value also cited by the BASH guidelines (BASH 2004), and suggest that for patients experiencing migraines at higher frequency than this, avoidance of rebound headache could be an additional benefit of preventive therapy (Adelman et al. 2002).
The Trigger Avoidance Model of Headaches (TAMH) has been proposed to explain how triggers acquire the capacity to precipitate headaches [1,2,3].
The Trigger Avoidance Model of Headaches.
Recurrent pain is often characterized by elevated pain-related fear and avoidance of behaviors which the headache sufferer believe will initiate or perpetuate the headache pain, a maladaptive process which serves to promote pain related disability [14].
