College Textbooks

Although headaches are natural, they are not necessary, argues David Buchholz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In his Heal Your Headache: The 1-2-3 Program for Taking Charge of Your Headaches, Buchholz counsels severe headache sufferers to avoid quick fix painkillers, which can cause rebound headaches. For a more holistic approach, minimize triggers like caffeine, perfumes, certain foods and stress and, for hardcore cases, use preventative medications such as tricyclic antidepressants, calcium channel blockers and others. Buchholz also discusses common misdiagnoses of migraine symptoms and challenges the myth of tension and sinus headaches (these are usually migraines, he argues).