Headache Treatment Checklist
Some of these strategies may be familiar to you. Learn about why these items may affect your headaches and how to implement them into your life.
Lifestyle Practices to Help your Headaches
Hover over each strategy to learn more. Check each box as you go along.
Limit your use of over-the-counter medications to prevent medication overuse headaches, or rebound headaches. Learn more about medication overuse.
What Drugs Can be Overused?
This can occur with over-the- counter pain medicines, such as Tylenol, ibuprofen, Advil, and Excedrin. It can also happen with prescription medications used to stop headaches like triptans (e.g., sumatriptan), butalbital combinations (e.g., Fioricet) and opioids (e.g., Norco).
How Much is
Too Much?
If you've been taking these medications for more than two or three days per week (or more than 10 days per month) for at least three months, then it's very possible that taking these medicines is causing, or is at least contributing to your headaches. Limit your use to fewer than 10 days a month.
Rebound Headaches and
How To Stop Them
You may be experiencing rebound headaches if you wake up with a headache, medication isn't effective, or if you notice pain returns or worsens after the medication wears off. To stop this, stop using medications contributing to rebound and rely on self-care items and this checklist.
Some people may have certain foods or diet patterns that can contribute to their headaches. Keeping a headache diary can help identify potential food triggers. At the bottom of this page is a headache diary that you may download and use electronically or print out.
Eating Patterns to Help Manage Your Headaches
Aim for a well-balanced diet with plenty of vegetables, protein and other nutritious foods. With headaches, it's especially important that you don't skip meals and that you follow a regular eating schedule, so that you're eating around the same each day.
Try Keeping a
Headache Diary
Keeping a diary to track your headaches and food or drink habits can help identify triggers. You can also track your medication use, sleep, or water intake to identify causes of your headaches. Try the app Migraine Buddy or view our headache diary below.
Common Food
and
Drink Triggers
Common food and drink triggers include caffeine, artificial sweeteners, alcohol (especially wine containing sulfites), MSG, nitrate-containing foods (deli meat, hot dogs, bacon) and tyramine-containing foods (aged cheese).
Even slight dehydration can cause a headache. So, it's important to monitor how much water you have daily and aim to drink a specific amount to meet your body's needs.
How Dehydration Causes Headache
Dehydration is closely related to headache frequency, severity and duration. Dehydration can cause headaches in anyone, including people who don't experience chronic headaches.
​
How Much Water Should You Be Drinking Daily?
Generally, you should be aiming to drink six to eight glasses of water on a daily basis.
​
​
​
​
Does Coffee or Soda Count?
No, water means water. Additionally, other drinks can be loaded with caffeine, sugar or artificial sweetener and contribute to your headaches.
​
​
​
This can be achieved by regular exercise and eating a balanced diet.
How Can Your Weight Affect Your Headaches?
Being over- or underweight are
strong risk factors for headaches. Studies have shown that weight loss can help treat headaches. Obesity usually results in problems with sleep, like sleep apnea, that can also affect your headaches. Learn more about obesity and migraines.
What To Do If You're Are Under- or Overweight
If you're under- or overweight, you should talk with your primary care doctor about your eating habits, level of activity and any other health-related factors that may be contributing to your weight.
​
​
​
We know that when things get busy, exercise is often the first to fall off the to-do list. Other times, differences in ability may make this difficult to achieve. However, any amount of regular exercise can be helpful to your headache and your overall health. If you have any doubt or concern about your ability to exercise, please talk with your primary care doctor before starting regular exercise. Learn more about the relationship between exercising and migraines.
How Does Exercise Affect Your Headaches?
Recent studies suggest that exercising triggers signals in your brain that help lessen the intensity of your headaches. People who exercise regularly generally have fewer problems with headaches. Simply starting an exercise program has been shown to help reduce headaches.
How Much Time Should You Spend Exercising?
The World Health Organization and headache providers recommend either 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week or 75 minutes of high intensity exercise per week (or an equivalent combination of both). Although, any amount of regular exercise is helpful. Learn more.
How Intense Should Your Exercise Be?
Light intensity exercises might include chair exercises. Moderate intensity exercise includes brisk walking, hiking or bike riding. Vigorous intensity exercise includes climbing stairs or running. Weightlifting has also shown immense benefits with headache management.
A good night's sleep can be difficult to attain. Problems with sleep are associated with having headaches. If you have problems with sleep, tiredness, or fatigue, we recommend talking to your primary care doctor. There are many things that can help problems with sleep. For now, learn more tips for healthy sleep.
How Does Poor Sleep Affect Your Headaches?
Sleep is a very important part of health. Lack of sleep and excessive sleep are frequent contributors to headaches. The goal should be about seven hours of sleep per night. Learn more about establishing healthy sleep habits to help manage your headaches.
​
​
Tips For a Good Night's Sleep
Individuals with headaches are encouraged to create a healthy bedtime routine that includes minimizing screen use within one hour of going to bed. We also encourage going to bed and waking up on a consistent schedule. Learn more about sleep hygiene practices.​
​
​
Sleep Apnea and Insomnia
Sleep apnea is a problem breathing while sleeping, which keeps people from getting restorative sleep. Insomnia is trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Learn more about these common sleep conditions that affect headaches.​
​
​
Opioid medications aren't recommended for long-term treatment of headaches. These medications can be easily overused and cause rebound headaches or addiction. Learn more about opioid medications and headaches.
Why You Should NOT Use Opioids
To Treat Your Headaches
There's very limited evidence that opioids can help patients compared to other self-care therapies and over-the-counter, and prescription medications. Further, frequent use of opioids for headache relief can cause rebound headaches from medication overuse.
Names of Common Opioids
Hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco)
Oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet)
Oxymorphone (Opana)
Morphine (Kadian, Avinza)
Codeine
Fentanyl
Tramadol​
​
​
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being and affects how we think, act, and feel. Poor mental health can be a contributor to your headaches.
How Does Your Mental Health Affect Your Headaches?
Stressors can cause chemical changes in your body that lead to mental health symptoms and headaches. These symptoms can affect your emotional well-being, increasing your risk of headaches. Studies have shown that when these symptoms are treated with therapies, headaches improve.
Do I Have Anxiety? Am I Depressed?
Mental health conditions are real, common and treatable. Anxiety and depression can look and feel differently than how it's portrayed to us in the media, so it's important that we check in with ourselves. Consider taking a mental health quiz.
​
​
What To Do If You're Struggling With Mental Health
Self-care is an important part of enhancing your quality of life and managing life's stressors. It can be hard to admit when you need help. We recommend asking your primary doctor for help, look for a therapist in your area at psychologytoday.com or learn more about Ohio State's resources.
​
If you found this information to be interesting or helpful, you can download a version of this as a PDF. We encourage you to save it to you phone or even hang it up on your refrigerator.
You can save this information by clicking on the PDF icon below.
Click on the PDF icon below to view out headache diary. You can save this to use electronically or print the document to fill it out by hand.