Too many pain pills cause headaches

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.

Those who take too often or too many pain relievers can develop chronic headaches. But this connection is unknown to most of the people. The German Society for Neurology (DGN) draws attention to this on the occasion of the newly published guidelines for the treatment of headache caused by overuse of painkillers.

Around half a million people are affected in Germany. "Most patients have no idea that painkillers can be the cause of pain," reports Prof. Hans-Christoph Diener, headache expert at DGN. Women suffer from it more often than men. Also, people with anxiety disorders or chronic back pain often develop pain reliever headaches.

A maximum of three days in a row and ten days a month

As a rule of thumb: never take pain medication for more than three days in a row and no more than ten days a month - in the dose recommended on the packaging. But many do not adhere to that. Because the over-the-counter sale suggests that they are harmless - which is not the case.

In addition to painkiller-induced headaches, there is a risk of serious side effects if they are overused. These include - depending on the pain reliever - liver damage, kidney failure and life-threatening bleeding. Experts also suspect that the risk of a heart attack or stroke could increase.

Pain medication every other day

Doctors speak of chronic headache from overuse of medication if the following points are true:

• The patients had previously suffered from headaches such as migraines or tension headaches.
• You have symptoms on 15 or more days a month for at least three months.
• You also take pain medication more than 14 days a month
• or take migraine drugs, opioids, or pain reliever combinations for more than nine days a month.

School, prevent, withdraw

The guideline recommends a three-step approach to the treatment of headaches caused by overuse of pain relievers and migraine drugs.

The first step is to train and advise patients. The aim is to reduce the intake of acute medication. The second step is to treat the underlying headache condition preventively with medication. If this strategy does not work, a drug break should be sought. This withdrawal can take place on an outpatient basis, in a day clinic or as an inpatient, depending on the circumstances.

Prevention with medication, relaxation and sports

In order to avoid headaches from too much medication in the first place, the experts advise consistent preventive treatment. In addition to medication, endurance sports, relaxation exercises and stress management help. For some people, behavioral therapy can also help prevent headaches beforehand.

Prevention is unknown

"Many patients simply do not know that headaches can be prevented," says the President of the German Migraine and Headache Society, private lecturer Stefanie Förderreuther. One of the reasons for this is the advertising that only presents painkillers for acute treatment. Preventive agents, on the other hand, usually require a prescription and should therefore not be advertised.

Germans are large consumers of over-the-counter pain relievers. They spend around 900 million euros on it every year. The most popular are the active ingredients acetylsalicylic acid, diclofenac, ibuprofen, naproxen and paracetamol.

Tags:  sleep symptoms desire to have children