There are many over the counter drugs that can be used to cure the common headache and even reduce fever. In some cases of persistent or severe headaches you could go to your doctor to get a prescription for some other medication for your headaches. Often you will be prescribed the same over drugs you can find over the counter, but with a higher grade of pain reliever milligrams.

Whether the medication you take for your headache is over the counter or prescribed by your doctor you should always be concerned with what the major side effects are. Always be sure to only take medication that has been personally prescribed to you for your symptoms. Never take someone else's prescription drugs because they could be given to that person for symptoms that they failed to tell you about other than the one symptom you may have.

When taking over the counter medication, do not mix the medication with any other medication whether it is prescribed or over the counter unless otherwise suggested by your doctor. Drugs can have a bad interaction with other drugs causing illness and sometimes death. The utmost caution should be used at all times when taking any sort of medication.

Common Questions About Migraines

Many people ask if there are different types of migraine headaches. The answer is yes. The most common types of migraine headaches, however, are classic migraine headaches and common migraine headaches. A classic migraine has warning signals, called an aura or precognition. These signals often cause changes in your vision. Some of the vision problems include seeing flashing lights and/or colors. You may also temporarily lose some of your vision, such as your peripheral or side vision. Classic migraines cause you to feel a strange burning or prickly sensation, or have tense or strange feeling muscles - usually on one side of your body. You may also have trouble communicating. You may also experience a state depression, restlessness and irritability.

These auras can last anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes, and in some cases hours before the actual migraine occurs. These auras sometimes occur before or after the pain from the migraine. Sometimes the pain from the aura overlaps causing more pain, and in some cases no pain occurs at all. The pain from a classic migraine usually occurs on one side of the head, while sever cases usually entail in both sides of the head.

With common migraines you don't have any warnings or auras. Common migraines sometimes start slower than a classic migraine but last longer. These migraines are intense and can interfere with your daily activities. The pain of a common migraine, as with a classic migraine, usually occurs only on one side of the head, but can occur on both sides.

You may also wonder what causes migraine headaches. Migraines are usually triggered, and many different things can trigger the migraine. The most common triggers for migraines include:

Odors: such as really strong, abnormal or unusual odors.

Lights: bright or flashing lights

Noises: usually loud noises such as music, screaming kids, etc.

Weather: going from cold to hot, or hot to cold. This also can be caused by changes in altitude.

State of mind: being over zealous or tired, anxious or over stressed, sadness or depression, or even being let down.

Sleeping: changing in your pattern of sleep or time, which causes tiredness.

Eating: missing meals, fasting or not eating at all. Also in some certain foods containing sodium nitrate, tyramine, or phenylalanine

Strain: Intense physical activity, overloading yourself with work, this also includes sexual activity

This description of a typical high-stress lifestyle may sound familiar to you... very familiar...

You get up in the morning, and you're running late, so the stress begins before you're even done eating breakfast. You rush off to work, stressing about whether you'll make it to work on time and then stressing about whether you'll get a speeding ticket on the way and end up really late. When you get to work, you're stressing about your job performance, your demanding boss and whether you'll get that promotion. When you're not stressing about your performance at work, you're stressing about your son's performance in school. As you're stressing over the traffic on the way home, you're stressing about your upcoming vacation plans. Finally, you're on your way out the door for vacation, but now you've got airport and flying stress!

It seems like you can't avoid it. Out of the frying pan into the fire, from one stress to the next you go. It may even seem amusing on the surface, all these little things stressing us out, but it's not a laughing matter at all. Getting control over the stress in your life can be a matter of life and death. If you're perpetually stressed and you don't learn what to do about it, you could become a prime candidate for high blood pressure - the silent killer.

Medical experts estimate that 90 percent of Americans will have high blood pressure at some point in their lives. With staggering statistics like this on their minds, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh embarked on a 13-year study to see if early-life stressors impacted someone's future blood pressure levels.

Following more than 5,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 30, the researchers studied the subjects' cardiovascular activity through a series of rather unusual tests, including submersing the subject's hands in ice cold water and having them engage in stressful video games.

After taking each person's blood pressure, they hypothesized that participants with the highest blood pressure readings would be precursors to high readings later in life. Thirteen years later, when the test results were re-evaluated--you guessed it--a significant number of those same participants had become hypertensive. The study was published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

So how do you go about minimizing your tendency towards getting stressed? Is it even possible in today's fast paced, information-overloaded and hectic society? The answer is yes and you're about to learn how.

First, I'd like you to consider the fact that I'm not suggesting that you stop everything you're doing. You don't necessarily have to slow down, you simply need to calm down. With that thought in mind, here are some action steps you can take starting today, which will make a big difference in keeping your stress levels under control, and minimizing the negative effects of stress that cannot be avoided.

(1) Exercise - Besides being good for your body, exercise is good for your brain. Exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, which make us feel happy, and at ease. It also helps to increase the flow of blood in the brain, ridding the mind of waste products that develop in the course of stressful times when mental processes are in excess. Furthermore, the more fit you are, the more you're able to cope with events in life that bring about stress.

I recommend a minimum of 30 minutes of walking most days of the week, gradually increasing to 45 minutes to 1 hour most days of the week. A study published in the December 2005 issue of "Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise" concluded that walking on a treadmill for just 30 minutes can boost your mood and feeling of well-being.

(2) Eat Regularly and Healthfully - Skipping meals is probably the worst thing you can do for your health. Low blood sugar levels that result from skipping meals not only slow down the metabolism but slow down virtually every system in the body. This in turn affects your ability to think clearly and contributes to stressful feelings because of hunger pangs.

Have a healthy breakfast for starters. One of my favorites is one cup of slow cooked oats, (not instant oatmeal which is loaded with preservatives) with banana, blueberries and a tablespoon of lecithin granules (very effective for lowering cholesterol). Avoid processed foods such as bacon and sausage, which are high in fat and lack fiber and nutrients. You should also eat small portions throughout the day. This will keep your metabolic fire burning hot and keep your blood sugar levels stable.

(3) Learn to Meditate - Research indicates that meditating for less than 20 minutes a day is extremely conducive to mental health and minimizing stress levels. The key is finding the time to meditate and then sticking with it once you start. A study published in the journal of Psychosomatic Medicine concluded that a short program in "mindfulness meditation" produced lasting positive changes in both the brain and the function of the immune system. The University of Wisconsin-Madison research team found that meditation, long promoted as a technique to reduce anxiety and stress, might produce important biological effects that improve a person's resiliency.

There are many ways to meditate, but start by finding a serene location, one where there are little to no distractions, where you can separate yourself from the world. Then, just like you see on television or in any other place that illustrates meditation, sit upright with your legs crossed and take long, deep breaths in and out. Focus as much as you can on your breathing and try to not let your mind wander. Be an observer; focus on your inner self.

One of the reasons meditation is so effective at reducing stress is because of the power of breathing properly. Go ahead and try it - right now. Take a long, deep breath through your nose... hold it, hold it.... Then slowly let it out through your mouth, and say to your self, silently, RELAX. Even with that one single breath, you felt a wave of relaxation pass through your body as tension drained away. Now imagine what a session of twenty, fifteen, ten or even just five minutes per day, whatever you can manage, of deep breathing meditation or guided relaxation will do for you.

The benefits of meditation are remarkable and this is not just some mystical Eastern "new age" prattle - the scientific research now proves it. One way to easily get started with a meditation is with hypnosis audios. Did you know that hypnosis sessions begin by using deep breathing to induce a state of deep, deep relaxation? In fact, when you "let go" and let a hypnotherapist guide you through it, whether in person, or more conveniently, by listening to audio, you automatically release tension, reduce stress and reach a deeper state of profound relaxation than any other way.

Do you suffer from chronic headaches? Are these headaches so tight feeling in your head that you want to explode? You might be suffering from tension headaches.

These are usually induced by stress. We get so worked up and so stressed out that we even cause our head to stress out. So how do you unwind this and make yourself feel better? You could try putting a cold rag on your head, but this is only a temporary relief.

Exercise will help reduce stress and give you a way to unwind and relax. Maybe read a book, but it is so hard to concentrate with your head throbbing. Does not sound like there is much of a home remedy for tension headaches, but let us not forget that people did not just start getting these.

Centuries ago people got tension headaches. There were no drugs to buy to relieve the pain and yet no one died from a tension headache. The modern day has us all believing that we need a pill or a shot to relieve pain and sickness.

Modern medicine is great, but sometime a pill is not needed. There are so many home remedies for illnesses that once we get past the skepticism we can start using them to cure even tension headaches.

There's an old English proverb which goes; 'a man is not old until his dreams become his regrets'. Oh how true is that statement. In fact when I was trekking in the Nepalese Himalayas some years ago, I had to admit defeat at one peak as I just didn't have the strength to go on. I was just 37 years old at the time and reasonably good shape, but the altitude, the thin air, and the extreme cold temperatures had gotten the better of me.

That was until a young trekker on his way back down told me I had to continue as there were 2 ladies at the summit in their 70's celebrating their achievement with a communal picnic for all who cared to join them.

There was no way on this earth that I was going to be beaten by a couple of old gals and I suddenly found myself with this new vigor which got me back on my feet and pushed me to the limits until I finally collapsed exhausted at the top.

Alas, the 2 pensioners had since moved on and were descending down the North side on the peak, but this incident showed me that we have more get-up-and-go in us than we realise, if only we push ourselves that extra mile. I also came to the conclusion that a lot of fitness and wellness is to do with the state of mind. Sure, it's important to know your limits, but there's so much hype around these days telling us that this is dangerous and too much of that can lead to complications etc. It's little wonder sometimes that we’re developing into a planet of weaklings.

This thing with the old ladies also pushed aside that old excuse that many of us use from forty upwards which is regretting never having done something and using age as an excurse to make that regret but a lost opportunity. Fitness and wellness in human beings does not cease to be just because we get older. Now I'm not suggesting that a 101 year old great grandmother of 16 should start bunji jumping every weekend, but I am talking about perspective here.

The time has come folks to reintroduce drive and vitality back into their lives. It's time to kick procrastination out of bed and replace it with zest, gusto, a new lease on life, and a refusal to grow old and frail just because the media tells to take it easy while the young take over. Obviously, if you are going to start 'moving' again after years of inaction, it's imperative that you inform your physician prior to pursuing any major changes to life style, but if you care anything about your fitness and wellbeing, you will go to any lengths to re-kick start your life back into meaning, no matter what.

Forget the zillions of armchair diets, as it is not they that will get your fitness and wellness back on track, it's activity. Refuse to kick back and give up on life. Get out of God's waiting room and back into the playground of life. With a little change in attitude and guidance from those in the know, a whole new you can be reborn if you want it badly enough. The next chapter doesn't have to be grim and great things will truly materialize if your work for them.

Just before closing, I want to make reference back to my opening paragraphs. I was on a backpacking tour of the West Asia at that time and I literally lost count on how many retired couples I came across that had sold their family homes, reinvested in smaller more suitable dwellings and were using the money they made from the downgrade to globe trot around the world. All these older folks had one thing in common. There were doing something they had always dreamt about and refusing to accept that their dreams as youngsters were to remains as dreams just because they were much older.

Ringworm is a fungal infection of the body skin, scalp, or nails. The disease occurs due to infection with dermatophytes, a type of fungal organisms that commonly populate the soil and are very widespread in nature. Also referred to as tinea, ringworm is very contagious and it can be acquired by anyone. The disease mostly occurs in children and in people that constantly interact with animals. The fungal elements responsible for causing ringworm can be contracted directly, by skin contact with contaminated people or animals, or indirectly, by entering in contact with contaminated objects. Ringworm is commonly acquired from cats or dogs, as these animals are often carriers of dermatophytes. Good personal hygiene is crucial in the prevention of ringworm and it is also advised not to use other people’s personal items. If you have a cat or a dog, pay regular visits to the vet’s in order to make sure that your pet isn’t infected with dermatophytes.

The first symptoms of ringworm of the scalp usually appear in about 10-14 days from contamination, while the symptoms of ringworm on other body regions may appear a little earlier. The disease is mainly diagnosed upon the patients’ reports of symptoms and upon close physical examination. Considering the fact that the symptoms of ringworm don’t always point to infection with dermatophytes, doctors usually take a sample of the patients’ affected skin for laboratory analysis. In the initial stages of the infection, the symptoms of ringworm are not intense and they may not be suggestive for contamination with fungal organisms. Therefore, the best means of diagnosing the disease is to carefully analyze skin samples taken from the patients’ affected regions of the body.

General symptoms of ringworm are: skin inflammation, rash, reddish aspect of the skin, small blisters on the skin, itching and soreness. The skin infection spreads in circular patches with prominent margins, giving the inflamed skin a ring-like aspect. The edges of the affected skin are usually more affected by the infection and they are sometimes covered with a crust. As the infection progresses towards other areas of the skin, the central regions of the inflamed patches begin to heal.

When the infection affects the scalp, the symptoms of ringworm are: small bumps, yellowish aspect of the affected areas on the scalp, exfoliation, temporary hair loss. If the fungal infection occurs in the regions of the feet, the symptoms of ringworm are: dry, cracked skin, scaling and thickening of the skin. When the disease affects the nails, the symptoms of ringworm are: nail deterioration, thickening, yellowish aspect of the nails. When the infection is localized on the face, the symptoms of ringworm are: red spots on the skin, swelling, inflammation and exfoliation.

It is best to timely discover the symptoms of ringworm, in order to prevent the spreading of the infection and the occurrence of complications. Also, if the disease is discovered and treated in time, the fungal infection will not be transmitted to other people. It is advised to see a dermatologist as soon as you have the first symptoms of ringworm.

We have all been been awakened in the middle of the night with a and painful burning sensation in our stomach or chest. These four proven remedies will help abate your heartburn and indigestion so you can get back to sleep fast, no matter what you have eaten. Often the first thing folks reach for is a glass of milk or mints. This, however, is something you should not do. Milk may feel good initially as it goes down your esophagus but the fats and proteins in the milk will cause your stomach to produce more acid to digest them and this makes your heartburn and indigestion worse.

While mints appear to sooth the heartburn initially they actually only relax the valve between your stomach and esophagus, which keeps acid at bay. As this valve becomes relaxed more acid moves up the esophagus and makes the pain worse. Therefore, drinking a whole glass of water followed by a one tablespoon baking powder and a half a glass of water is best. Do not do this if you have high blood pressure or are pregnant as this can cause water retention and an increase in blood pressure.

Another good trick is to eat a banana each day. A banana acts as a natural antacid for the stomach and will soothe heartburn and indigestion. If you are suffering from indigestion you can also eat a pineapple or papaya as well as drinking the juice depending on your preference. This will help settle your stomach naturally without the the chemicals you get in over-the-counter medicines. Many people have reported that eating a teaspoon full of mustard will immediately work to help their indigestion.

Thirdly, avoid eating at least two hours before you go to sleep. Late night snacks keep your stomach busy producing the acid needed to digest food, preventing you from having a deep, restful sleep at night. Some people even find that sleeping on their left side or at a slightly upright angle helps keep their acid down where it belongs.

Fourth, simply avoid eating the kinds foods that may cause your heartburn. Carbonated beverages like soda or any beverages with caffeine, alcohol,garlic,chocolate,citrus,tomatoes and tomato-based products are foods that can cause indigestion and heartburn symptoms. It has also been reported that taking a teaspoon full of vinegar soothes their heartburn immediately.

The reason giving your stomach more acid is actually helpful is because it helps stop the excess of acid it is already producing. This is because indigestion and heartburn is often caused by too little acid in the stomach and the acid in vinegar will give your stomach the little bit of extra acid it needs to calm down, eliminating your indigestion and heartburn suffering.

I've always considered chocolate to be one of the most decadent, satisfying and unquestionably addictive foods on this earth (along with countless other women, I'm sure).

It's been there for me as a pleasure-producing comfort food through rough times, blue moods and trying times on the job. So, how could something that elicits such feelings of bliss be "bad" for me?

Well, researchers are now saying that chocolate, especially the high quality variety, offers certain unique health benefits never before discussed or studied. Now, does this mean it's ok to consume a king sized Hershey bar every day?

No, of course not. Because you see, unfortunately along with the indulgent good flavor and body of chocolate, there comes an inherent "unhealthy" factor in the sugar and fat added to accomplish it's distinct texture and flavor.

The ingredient in chocolate that gives it that unique flavor that so much of us crave as "comfort food" is cocoa, and this is also the ingredient that packs the nutritional compounds of which I am speaking - not the sugar or the fat. The healthiest type of chocolate that you can eat is actually the darker chocolates, because they typically contain more cocoa and less sugar and fat.

The darker chocolates also tend to be more bitter, but that is actually my favorite type of chocolate as opposed to the creamier, less cocoa-concentrated version, milk chocolate. Whether you're a dark chocolate or a milk chocolate fan, you still receive some sort of nutritional benefit even from the lighter, creamier stuff.

So, what is this "healthy" nutrient that the cocoa in chocolate gives us? The cocoa bean, from which cocoa powder is derived from, contains a fairly potent concentration of antioxidant nutrients, so the more cocoa, the better.

If you're a dark chocolate lover, this means you get more of that antioxidant benefit delivered to your blood stream, which helps to ward off unhealthy tissue growth and destroys free radicals, the arch enemy of the healthy cell.

Chocolate not only imparts rich nutrient benefits when consumed in moderate amounts, but studies have also shown it elevates the mood, which partially explains our emotional connection with chocolate, AKA addiction. OK, aside from the rich texture and taste bud tempting taste.

There has actually been research done where the unborn fetuses in a mother's womb who consumed chocolate exhibited elevated signs of activity. Researchers came to the conclusion that the chocolate consumption of the mother subsequently improved her baby's temperament, which translates into the adult term for "happy".

Chocolate has even been called the most high impact food when it comes to cravings and mood. When we crave chocolate, we tend to crave it when we are feeling low emotionally. The likely mechanism of chocolate's mood altering abilities is it's ability to make the body produce endorphins. Endorphins are essentially the primary "pleasure chemical" which is emitted by the brain and cause pleasurable sensations of well being and contentment.

Whether the endorphin release is caused simply by the good taste of chocolate, or whether there is some actual mood altering chemical in chocolate is still up for debate. Whatever the case may be, it cannot be ignored that many of us, especially women, equate eating chocolate with pleasure and comfort, and there is definitely a reason for it.

Chocolate consumption will always be a sure thing when it comes to mood enhancement. We have to be prudent when consuming chocolate though, since the effects of the sugar can actually cause us to crash and feel worse.

Another unfortunate fact is that chocolate is high in calories and can definitely add up if you consume it several times a day, or you over do it on the portion. So, the next time you feel that irrestistable urge for chocolate, grab a mini chocolate bar, and get those antioxidant, mood boosting juices flowing!