Disorders of the Nose and Throat-Such troubles, especially adenoids and enlarged tonsils in children, enlarged turbinates, and polypi (see Nose Disorders, p. 74) are fruitful sources of headache. In nose-headaches there is often tenderness on pressing on the inner wall of the bony socket inclosing the eyeball. Diseases of the Maternal Organs. - These in women produce headache, particularly pain in the back of the head. If local symptoms are also present, as backache (low down), leucorrhoea, painful monthly periods, and irregular or excessive flowing, or trouble in urinating, then the cause of the headache is probably some disorder which can be cured at the hands of a skillful specialist in women's diseases. Nervous Headaches. These occur in brain exhaustion and anæmia, and in nervous exhaustion. There is a feeling of pressure or weight at the back of the head or neck, rather than real pain. This is often relieved by lying down. Headache from anæmia is often associated with pallor of the face and lips, shortness of the breath, weakness, and palpitation of the heart. Rest, abundance of sleep, change of scene, out-of-door life, nourishing food, milk, cream, butter, eggs, meat, and iron are useful in aiding a return to health (see Nervous Exhaustion, p. 290). Neuralgic Headaches.—The pain is usually of a shooting character, and the scalp is often exceedingly tender to pressure. They may be caused by exposure to cold, or by decayed teeth, or sometimes by inflammation of the middle ear (see Earache, p. 54). Headache from Poisoning.-Persons addicted to the excessive use of tea, coffee, alcohol, and tobacco are often subject to headache from poisoning of the system by these substances. In tea, coffee, and tobacco poisoning there is also palpitation of the heart in many cases; that is, the patient is conscious of his heart beating, irregularly and violently (refer also to Palpitation, p. 443), which causes alarm and distress. Cessation of the habit and sodium bromide, twenty grains three times daily, dissolved in water, administered for not more than three days, may relieve the headache and other trouble. Many drugs occasion headache, as quinine, salicylates, nitroglycerin, and some forms of iron. The poisons formed in the blood by germs in acute diseases are among the most common sources of headache. In these disorders there is always fever and often backache, and general soreness in the muscles. One of the most prominent symptoms in typhoid fever is constant headache with fever increasing toward night, and also higher each night than it was the night before. The headache and fever, together often with occasional nosebleed and general feeling of weariness, may continue for a week or two before the patient feels sick enough to go to bed. The existence of headache with fever (as shown by the thermometer) should always warn one of the necessity of consulting a physician. Headache owing to germ poisons is also one of the most distressing accompaniments of grippe, measles, and smallpox, and sometimes of pneumonia. The headache caused by the poison of the malarial parasite in the blood is very violent, and the pain is situated usually just over the eye, and occurring often in the place of the paroxysm of the chill and fever at a regular hour daily, every other day, or every fourth day. If the headache is due to malaria, quinine will effect a cure in most cases. The headache of rheumatism is owing also to a special poison in the blood, and is often associated with soreness of the scalp. If there are symptoms of rheumatism elsewhere in the body, existing headache may be logically attributed to the same disease (see Rheumatism, p. 183). The poison of gout circulating in the blood is sometimes a source of intense headache. The headache of Bright's disease of the kidneys and of diabetes is dull and commonly associated with nausea or vomiting, swelling of the feet or ankles, pallor and shortness of breath in the former; with thirst and the passage of a large amount of urine (normal quantity is three pints in twenty-four hours) in the case of diabetes. The headaches of indigestion are also of poisonous origin, the products of imperfectly digested food being absorbed into the blood and acting as poisons. Another variety of headache due to poisoning is seen in children crowded together in ill-ventilated schoolrooms and overworked. Still another kind is due to inhalation of illuminating gas escaping from leaky fixtures. Headache from Heat Stroke.-Persons who have been exposed to excessive heat or have actually had a heat stroke (Vol. II, p. 330) are very prone to headache, which is made worse by movements of the head. Sodium bromide, twenty grains dissolved in water, may be given to advantage three times daily between meals in these cases for not more than two days. Phenacetin in eight-grain doses may also afford relief, but should not be used more often than once or twice a day. Constant Headache. This, afflicting the patient all day and every day, and increasing in severity at night, is suggestive of some disease of the brain, as congestion, brain tumor, or meningitis, and urgently demands skillful medical attention. |