If you’re prone to headaches, you’re probably used to stocking up on painkillers. Along with relaxation techniques, medications like paracetamol and ibuprofen are recommended as a first line of defence for treating that throbbing sensation.
More than 10 million people in the UK experience regular headaches, be those tension headaches (the most common kind), cluster headaches or migraine. Almost everyone has experienced a tension headache at some point, while around one in seven people are affectedby migraine.
However, if your headache doesn’t go away, it’s worth investigating a counterintuitive possibility – that your headache is caused by the painkillers themselves. It is thought that 1-2% of the population (around one million Brits) suffer from ‘medication-overuse headaches‘, in which the medication ends up creating the problem it’s trying to cure.
Read the full article at Patient
Journalist portfolio 