More than 45 million Americans suffer from headaches that disrupt their daily routine. Therapeutic Solutions International has developed a Headache Impact Test and Score Sheet to discover the intensity of your headaches.  You can find this on their website, www.nti-tss.com or view it as the attached PDF here. Do you think your headaches disrupt your daily routines?

There has been a lot of talk about “migraine triggers,” including diet, exercise and sleeping habits.  The most controversial is the idea of food triggers. “Although many people believe that some foods may trigger a migraine, the evidence remains a bit fuzzy,” says Elizabeth Loder, MD, MPH, the chief of the Division of Headache and Pain at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Loder points out that it is difficult to track food triggers because different foods may affect people in different ways. There’s also no consensus about how long it might take a dietary culprit to set off a headache so it’s difficult to pin down which foods are the real trouble makers.

Are isolating yourself in dark rooms or popping handfuls of aspirin your ideas of headache relief?  An increasingly popular dental treatment was presented at the 2nd European Headache and Migraine Trust International Congress meeting in Nice, France. Neurologist, Dr. Andrew Blumenfeld presented a poster  about the safety and effectiveness of the NTI therapeutic protocol for the treatment of headaches and migraines.

Dr. Blumenfeld's presentation was based on survey responses from nearly 600 dentists that provided more than 75,000 NTI splints to their patients. The participating dentists reported the NTI served as an effective treatment for headaches in more than 90% of these patients. Dr. Blumenfeld's presentation also showed the NTI to result in undesirable clinical changes in less than 2% of patients. These findings were also published by Dr. Blumenfeld in The Journal of Headache and Pain. This is the only headache treatment I'm aware of that has been demonstrated to be this safe and effective.