I get headaches that are totally debilitating. For the last several years they’ve been the type that start as perceptible, but not painful, upon waking. I often feel overheated, puffy, thirsty when I wake up and my forehead has just enough of a headache that I know if I don’t act fast this thing is gonna get worse and worse throughout the day. And the last thing I want is debilitating pain when I’m stuck at work, far away from the controlled environment that is my home.

Fortunately, there was a period of a few weeks one winter when I was living in Toronto where I had no hot water. I’m a clean guy so I had to learn how to bear the cold water in my shower. Either that or insist that my landlord fix the situation but I didn’t want to put the guy out. It worked out great because this ended up being the single most important factor in beating these morning-onset headaches – extremely cold water. But I augment it with a few other things – here’s my winning recipe for beating this type of headache:

1) Keep a 1000 pack of ibuprofen by the bed so when you wake up with a headache you can pop 3. The container recommends 2 so obviously 3 won’t kill you. Down them with plenty of water (people are always like “water is so important to drink a lot of” and for headaches sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t but it can’t hurt).

2) KEY STEP: Go to the shower and turn it on cold only. Put just your head under the stream, water hitting the back of your head until it starts to hurt. Then fully step into the stream and lift up your head, cold water now hitting your forehead and face. Continue until this part of your head starts hurting at which point you step back a bit and proceed to rinse the rest of your body. Depending on the severity of the headache, you’ll want to keep putting your head under the freezing cold water until you can’t take it anymore. Then shampoo and focus on cooling off the rest of your body. It’s a common misconception the you only have to worry about cooling off your head but this is because most people forget that their head is connected to their body. Inside your neck are arteries and veins that can route warm blood from your body into you head. Don’t let this happen. After shampooing douse your head some more. The more the better. Stand under the stream, letting it pour down your body. When you do this it is very hard to breathe normally, without gasping. In the winter, when the water can be really cold, you’ll notice your extremities actually begin to hurt a bit. This is good.

Turn on coffee machine in preparation for step 4 (always have coffee in the house)

3) Go have breakfast. I always have a bowl of some organic cereal with blueberries on it but this is just me. Just put something good in your stomach.

At this point the ibuprofen is kicking in. Your body is happy to have the food. And you’re still friggin freezing, even spastically jerking as you raise spoonfuls of cereal to your mouth (eat over the bowl). Everything is converging on anihilating the headache…but there’s one more critical step.

4) Have a strong coffee. Have it in a small volume and consume it rather quickly (e.g. within 5min). Downing it gives you those vasoconstrictive effects of a high dose of caffeine that you won’t get if you sip it ever so slowly. Plus this is all about steps 1-4 converging towards headache anhiliation – don’t waste the window of opportunity.

I have a double espresso with nearly equal parts 18% cream (not required) and sometimes it tastes great so I make another (more anhiliation).

At this point you’re basically done but you can still embellish. What if you’re just on the verge of beating it? Wanna few extra pointers, just to be safe?

Pro bonus tips: Drink a good glass of dilute orange juice before leaving for work/class/whatever. Driving to work? Put the air on cold or open the window a bit if it’s winter. Don’t zip up your jacket.Don’t wear long sleeves. Pin your hair up so your head can breathe. Basically, stay cold. You should be feeling the effects of the shower long after (e.g. 30min later my toes are often numb, I’m shivering). Also, before falling asleep, you can increase the liklihood that you’ll wake up cold – e.g. fewer sheets, thermostat as low as you (or your co-habitants) can withstand.

Final thoughts: When you’re done the shower you shouldn’t feel the headache any more and, if you did it right, it won’t come back. So getting out of the shower, cold as you are, you can be feeling pretty great. Plus it’s damn invigorating and you certainly are not tired. However, this doesn’t always work. Plus there are probably hundreds of different reasons why people get headaches and therefore hundreds of different solutions. Sometimes the headache is too bad upon waking for anything to kill it but often it’s surprisingly bad and I still conquer it (those are the moments when I think “damn I gotta write about this – this is amazing!”).  Lastly, the excessive amount of extremely cold water is very hard to take, but it works. It’s not going to kill you so, if you can’t take it, I guess your headache is just not thaaat bad.

I wrote this because there are a million other ideas out there about how to cure headaches but I’ve never heard this one before, and it’s pretty much my only remedy. I’m super curious if it will be of use to anyone else out there.

]]> http://manwithface.com/2010/02/a-headache-cure-that-involves-cold-water-and-not-too-much-pharmacology/feed/ 2 http://manwithface.com/2010/02/hi-end-rev/ http://manwithface.com/2010/02/hi-end-rev/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:38:30 +0000 mwf http://manwithface.com/2010/02/hi-end-rev/

Apparently I’m in the wrong field. That is, the wrong field for making the big bucks. The sticker with the cross says “Pastor”. The 750 emblem says “loaded”.

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Notice how the one on on the right says “2 more pierogies” yet has the same number of pierogies and weighs the same amount (456g, not shown for aesthetic reasons) as a regular pack? WTF Mrs. T? You tryin’ to pull the wool over my eyes? Manwithface is a smart shopper. I can’t believe you!

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This had been in my filing cabinet for…about 3 years now. Indeed, I filed it away because I knew I would need to refer to it later. That being said, I will never buy my children Fun Dip. Disgusting.

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