This symptom or affection, (if it can be classed as a disease) may depend upon so many causes, and be so very different in its effects, degrees of intensity, and the kind of pain or sensation attending it, that one will find it very difficult to mark out any definite treatment. I shall, therefore, only point out some of the more frequent cases, and the indications for certain remedies.
What is called "sick headache," or "nervous headache," begins by a sense of blindness or blur, before the eyes, of green or purple colors, dazzling or swimming in the head, without, for some time at first, any positive aching or pain. In the course of an hour, a longer or shorter time, the dimness of vision goes off, and the head begins to ache. This may or may not be accompanied with nausea and vomiting. Some persons are always more or less sick at the stomach, when these "nervous headaches" come on, others are not thus affected.
TREATMENT.
If taken as soon as the first blur before the eyes is noticed, or before any pain is felt in the head, Nux Vomica will, in nearly all cases, arrest the disease at once. It may be necessary to take two or three doses at intervals of an hour. Later in the case, though Nux may palliate, it will not cure.
If headache with sickness comes on, Macrotin and Podoph. should be given in alternation, every half hour, if the symptoms are very severe, and the nausea great; but in a mild case, give it once an hour, lengthening the interval as the symptoms abate.
If the feet are cold, as is often the case, putting them into hot water will palliate the symptoms, and not interfere with the medicines.
If the head feels hot, apply hot water to it. Never apply cold to the head, when there are any symptoms of congestion, as of fullness of the blood vessels. For
Common Headache,
If the face is red, and the arteries of the neck and temples throb violently, give Bell. If there is paleness and faintness, Pulsatilla is the remedy, especially if the forehead is principally affected. If the pain is mostly in the back of the head, Nux is to be used; if in the front, and is sharp, affecting the eyes, Aconite; if at the angles of the forehead, with a sense of pinching, Arnica; if a sense of fullness and pressing outwards, or with an enlarged feeling, Macrotin; if intermitting or remitting, Mercurius; if there is ringing in the ears, China. Headache from fright should have Aconite.
For that kind of headache that often occurs during the prevalence of fevers, and is not unfrequently a premonitory symptom of an attack of fever, I have found Baptisia and Podophyllin to be specifics. I give them alternately, every two hours a dose, until the headache ceases. It often subsides in a few minutes after the first dose of either, though I have sometimes failed with one alone and succeeded in the same cases afterwards with both in alternation. I have no doubt but that they act in many cases, as Prophylactics, entirely warding off and preventing fevers, or at least arresting them at the premonitory stage. Podophyllin is a most valuable remedy for headache.