Greeting Card Campaign: 10-9 Headache Relief Day

Click here to download your card.

October 9^th is Headache Relief Day, an odd little holiday aimed at raising awareness of migraine pain and all the unusual ways to ease it.  The Headache Center of Atlanta says that 80% of migraine sufferers experience migraines that are triggered by stress, 65% by hormones, 65% by odors, 38% by lights, 36% by smoke, 30% by heat and 27% by food. So, some suggestions for easing or preventing migraines include:

1. Eat a very low-fat diet.
2. Take Vitamin B, Feverfew, Melatonin or Butterbur.
3. OTC products that contain a blend of acetaminophen, aspirin, and caffeine for migraines that don't make you throw up.
4. Prescription drugs that contain a triptan can prevent migraines if taken at the first sign of an attack, and ease pain after an attack is underway better than 40% of the time.
5. Beta-blockers like propranolol (Inderal) and timolol (Blocadren) and calcium channel-blockers when those don't work may help prevent migraines in 90% of patients.
6. Stop taking pain meds, especially over-the-counter ones. You may be getting rebound headaches.
7. Acupuncture.
8. Sex (oddly enough sexual activity has a better success rate at relieving headaches than pain-killers and it's more fun too!)

Oddly enough, October 9^th is also the Feast Day of St. Denis, a 3^rd-century French Bishop. Some critic of his preaching lopped off his head in a fit of pique. It was said St. Denis picked up his own head and walked several miles around town carrying it while the head preached a sermon, perhaps giving non- Christians one final headache before he sat down and expired.

Rather than doing something unpleasant like that, however, why not send your Sweetheart a Headache Relief Day card and promise to do something to relieve her pain. Just click on the caption below the picture of the girl with the headache at the top left.  The link will take you to a pdf file in Google Docs. Remember, instead of printing from Google Docs, click on "File" in the upper left corner, then select "Download" and copy the file to your own computer.  Open it with Adobe PDF Reader or whatever PDF reader you use and print the card from there. For some reason Google Docs doesn't handle fonts well, even though they are supposed to be embedded in the PDF document itself.

This is a side fold card, so when it prints, be sure to tell your printer it's in "landscape" format so you get the whole file. Flip it on the short side to print double-sided. Much quicker that way. You might want to jot down some of those headache "cures" we talked about - all in the interest of pain relief you understand!

© 2013 by Tom King