The Best Remedies for Common Headaches

Whether it's that pulsating pain of a migraine, or the vice-like grip of sinus congestion, nobody likes a headache. Headaches (and their causes) are all different. With that in mind, here are the causes and treatments for the most common headaches.

According to the National Headache Foundation, at least 150 different variations on headaches exist, and they range from being caused by not eating to genetics. That said, most of us will never (hopefully) feel all 150 types. A few common types exist that we're all prone to. Here's how to deal with them.

Tension Headaches

Tension headaches are the most common headache for most of us experience. They're accented by mild to moderate pain, tightness, and pressure in the forehead (or back of the neck). Typically, the pain is "throbbing" and although annoying, doesn't usually ruin your day.

Causes: Since a tension headache is so common, the causes are pretty widespread. They're caused by anxiety, eye strain, caffeine, food, poor rest, bad posture, stress, hunger, or just about anything else you change in your daily schedule. Tension headaches are also usually the type of headache you end up with after a night of alcohol. Essentially, if something is abnormal about your day, whether it's a late lunch or a series of deadlines at work, a tension headache might pop up.

Treatment: Tension headaches are usually best handled with over-the-counter painkillers like aspirin or ibuprofen before the pain gets severe. Those aren't cures, but they make the pain go away for a while. In general, your best bet is to rest and relax until the headache goes away. Even a hot pepper may provide some relief. If your headaches are common enough, your doctor may have other solutions. Otherwise, it's good to find your triggers, minimize them, and fight back. If a headache comes from stress, meditation may help, if you're hungry, then eat. If it comes from eyestrain, get away from the computer for a while.

Prevention: Tension headaches are best prevented by tuning your routine to minimize potential triggers. It's a little trial-and-error to find the exact cause of a tension headache, but if you know they come around when you're stressed, hungry, or tired, then you can work on preventing them. Even certain food allergies can trigger a headache.

If you get a headache (or you're getting them a lot), think back through the day and see what you did differently. If something stands out, it might be the trigger. If you need a little help, Tylenol's Headache Tracker makes it simple to track you day and root out the causes.

Of course, if alcohol is the cause, you have a few ways of dealing with it. The same goes for those headaches caused by 3D movies, or eyestrain. With eyestrain, it's also worth looking into seeing if you might need glasses as well (or at least clean yours if you're already wearing some). If your headaches come from bad posture, that can be improved, and ergonomically optimizing your workspace can help as well. Photo by Rob Sinclair.

Migraines

Migraines are typically described as a moderate to severe pounding pain that can last from three hours to several days. You also get symptoms like sensitivity to light, noise, or odors, as well as nausea and loss of appetite.

Causes: According to the Mayo Clinic, the exact causes of migraines are still unclear, though it's thought that genetics and your environment can both cause migraines (around 70 percent of migraine sufferers have a hereditary influence). It's thought that hormonal changes, stress, unusual sensory stimuli (like weird odors or bright lights), changes in sleep patterns, and even a change in the weather all act as potential triggers for a migraine. Your diet can also play a roll in migraines.

Treatment: Migraines are a mixed bag for treatment options, but doctor-prescribed triptans (like Imitrex, Zomig, Maxalt) are the most commonly effective pain reliever for people when over the counter solutions like Aspirin don't work. In the middle of a migraine stretching can relieve some symptoms. If all else fails, when you're waiting out the pain, a cold head wrap may provide a little relief.

Prevention: While migraines may be hereditary, they're still usually caused by triggers, and it's typically recommended that you narrow down those triggers and avoid them. Again, a headache diary can be helpful in narrowing down those triggers. It's also thought that light exercises like walking can help prevent migraines. While inconclusive, certain remedies like butterbur (a plant extract), magnesium (found in wheat bread, almonds, spinach, and more) and riboflavin (found in cereals, pastas, sauses, and more) may be effective in reducing the frequency of attacks. Getting the exact amount of good sleep every night is also thought to help decrease the occurances of migraines. Photo by Robbie Wagner.

Sinus Headaches

Sinus headaches are when you have a constant pain in the bridge or your nose, around the cheek bones, or forehead. The painful headache is also usually accompanied by other unpleasant symptoms like ear aches, fever, swelling in the face, and a runny nose.

Causes: A sinus headache comes about when the sinus gets inflamed, usually from an allergic reaction (that causes sinus congestion) or infection (like a cold or flu). As the sinuses get inflamed, the inflammation causes swelling and increased mucus so everything gets blocked up.

Treatment: Treatment of a sinus headache is a tricky business because you're attacking on two different fronts: the pain relief of the headache itself, and treating the sinus infection. According to WebMD, the best treatment is usually an antibiotic to deal with the infection and antihistamines to help you deal with the symptoms. In the heat of a sinus headache, drinking lots of fluids is key to recovery. A humidifier or salt water nasal spray is often helpful.

Prevention: Since sinus headaches often come from two sources, prevention is all about lowering your exposure to both. For allergy related headaches, humidifiers, nasal sparays, steam, and neck stretches are thought to help. Certain dietary supplements may also help, including bromelain (found in pineapple stems), and quercetin (brewed black or green teal, kale, red onions, and others). Lowering your contact with allegens is also key to prevent sinus infections.

Of course, if the infection comes from a cold or flu, then your best idea is to avoid getting sick. A good amount of sleep, washing your hands, and cutting out cigarettes and alcohol are the best way to prevent illness. That said, a little steam is good for preventing colds as well. Photo by Eunice.

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As we mentioned at the outset, 150 different kinds of headaches exist with a variety of causes. If headaches are a repeating problem, it's good to visit your doctor. You should expect them to ask about the frequency, time, type of pain, other symptoms, sleeping patterns, and more to help them diagnose the problem.

Title image remixed from ollyy (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/HNsOek2jMjo/the-best-remedies-for-common-headaches

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Closest Earth-like planet 'stroll across park'

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined.

Astronomers reported Wednesday that the nearest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light-years away ? or some 77 trillion miles. That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there based on the team's study of red dwarf stars.

Galactically speaking, that's right next door.

If our Milky Way galaxy were shrunk to the size of the United States, the distance between Earth and its closest Earth-like neighbor would be the span of New York's Central Park, said Harvard University graduate student Courtney Dressing, the study's lead author.

"The nearest Earth-like planet is simply a stroll across the park away," she said at a news conference in Cambridge, Mass.

Small, cool red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy, numbering at least 75 billion.

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics team estimates 6 percent of red dwarf stars have Earth-like planets. To qualify, the planet must be roughly the size of Earth and get as much light from its star, as Earth does from the sun.

This high rate of occurrence should simplify the search for extraterrestrial life.

As the report's co-author, David Charbonneau, noted, he's an astronomer, but hopes to become a biologist if that search succeeds.

These planetary candidates are quite different than Earth because of the differences between their red dwarf stars and the sun, Charbonneau told reporters.

Because the red dwarfs are so much smaller, potentially habitable planets would need to orbit much closer than the Earth does to the sun. They likely would be rocky, the astronomers said, but different types of atmospheres could lead to different types of life.

Red dwarf stars also can be old ? far older than our sun ? which means their planets could be much older than Earth and their potential life forms much more evolved.

Our solar system is 4.5 billion years old, for instance, while some red dwarf stars are 12 billion years old. One of these target planets could be 12 billion years old as well, the scientists said.

Future spacecraft should be able to locate these planets and provide environmental clues.

California Institute of Technology astronomer John Johnson, who was not involved in the study, called the proximity of the nearest Earth-like planet "extraordinarily exciting."

"It's right within reach," Johnson said, and future efforts will put scientists "hot on the trail of finding life elsewhere in the galaxy."

These newest findings are based on data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009. They will be published in "The Astrophysical Journal."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/closest-earth-planet-stroll-across-park-174405856.html

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Weird News: Man Tattoos His Name On Girlfriend's Face | YourTango

That's one way to express yourself.

... just a few hours after they met in person.

You know how you're never supposed to get tattoos that symbolize your partner? That includes 5-inch tall face art too.

More from YourTango: The 6 Guys To Break Up With

It seems Lesya Toumaniantz didn't get the memo when she allowed her tattoo-artist boyfriend to write his name "Ruslan," across both her cheeks. Now, she wears her heart on her face.

The ink went down a few hours after they met in person. The couple reportedly met in an online chatroom and now are engaged.

See Photos Of The Face Tattoo at Huffington Post Weird News:?Rouslan Toumaniantz, Tattoo Artist, Inked Name Across Girlfriend Lesya's Face, Hours They Met (PHOTO)

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Source: http://www.yourtango.com/2013173194/weird-news-man-tattoos-name-girlfriends-face

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Gene variants found to affect human lifespan

Feb. 4, 2013 ? By broadly comparing the DNA of children to that of elderly people, gene researchers have identified gene variants that influence lifespan, either by raising disease risk or by providing protection from disease.

"This research is the first genome-wide, population-based study of copy number variations in children associated with human longevity," said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

The study appeared Jan. 30 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Copy number variations (CNVs) are rare but play important role in raising or lowering disease risk

Copy number variations (CNVs) are losses or gains in DNA sequence that are usually rare, but which often play an important role in raising or lowering the risk of disease.

The study team compared the rates of CNVs in a sample of 7,313 young subjects, 18 years old and below, from the Children's Hospital network, to a group of 2,701 Icelandic subjects, 67 years old or above, recruited by the Icelandic Heart Association. The researchers used microchip arrays to perform the whole-genome CNV analyses.

"Our assumption was that CNVs appearing in children but not in the elderly were more likely to be disease-causing, while CNVs that were proportionately higher in older people were more likely to be protective, allowing them to live longer," said Hakonarson.

Study compared CNVs in children with CNVs in older people

After performing a replication study in an independent U.S. cohort of 2,079 children and 4,692 older people and making statistical adjustments to address population stratification, the study team found seven significant CNVs. Three of the CNVs were deletions of DNA sequence, while four were duplications.

The genes impacted by the CNVs were disproportionately involved in alternative splicing. This is an important biological mechanism in which, instead of one gene simply expressing one protein, modifications to messenger RNA result in different protein products based on the same underlying DNA code in a given gene.

CNVs overrepresented in children may represent novel targets implicated in short lifespan

"Our results suggest that CNVs and other genetic variants may exert their effects through gene networks and pathways that regulate biological functions through mechanisms such as alternative splicing," said Hakonarson. "Possibly in a more global way than previously thought, some of these CNVs may have favorable effects, whereas others are bad for you and predispose you to diseases."

Although much work remains to be done, he added that the CNVs overrepresented in children may represent novel targets implicated in short lifespan. Eventually, added Hakonarson, if such CNVs are incorporated into early clinical screening tests, their presence could be prognostic markers indicating which patients should take individualized preventive health measures.

An Institutional Development Award from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia supported this research, along with the Cotswold Foundation. Other funding sources for databases used in this study included the National Institutes of Health and the Icelandic Heart Association.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Joseph T. Glessner, Albert Vernon Smith, Saarene Panossian, Cecilia E. Kim, Nagahide Takahashi, Kelly A. Thomas, Fengxiang Wang, Kallyn Seidler, Tamara B. Harris, Lenore J. Launer, Brendan Keating, John Connolly, Patrick M. A. Sleiman, Joseph D. Buxbaum, Struan F. A. Grant, Vilmundur Gudnason, Hakon Hakonarson. Copy Number Variations in Alternative Splicing Gene Networks Impact Lifespan. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (1): e53846 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0053846

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/_ekOiD2Zz-c/130204153914.htm

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Minnesota Workers Compensation Secrets from a Former Insurance ...

As the founder of Atkinson Law Office, P.A. and Minnesota Disability, I have been involved in thousands of workers compensation settlements over the last 20 years.? One thing that is common in many of them is that some form of medical benefits are usually left open.? Even though the words may say, "full, final and complete settlement" they are usually followed by the type of benefits left open.? One thing is certain, all workers compensation settlements are not equal.

If you can't find you settlement agreement or don't remember your lawyers name, we have the expertise to obtain a copy of the settlement documents through the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.? In as little as a couple of weeks, we can obtain the document, review it and counsel your remaining rights to workers compensation benefits.? We can explain to you how your existing health insurance (if you have any) affects your right to workers compensation benefits.?

Contact our office today at 651-333-3636 and let us begin helping you with discovery what benefits you have remaining with your old workers compensation settlement.? Whether you have your documents or not, we would be happy to assist you.? At Atkinson Law Office, P.A. and Minnesota Disability, we have a team of experienced workers compensation professionals waiting to help you 24/7.?

Source: http://mnworkcompsecrets.blogspot.com/2013/02/i-settled-my-work-comp-claim-and-need.html

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Video: Well Timed Calls in Acme Last Week

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Justin Bieber Weed Photos: More to Come?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/justin-bieber-weed-photos-more-to-come/

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