Why do I get a headache when the wind blows? It may be caused by a cold!

Many people have experienced headaches when the wind blows, but they don’t know why. This situation is related to many reasons. The patient may have a cold, or the cold wind may cause blood flow to the blood vessels in the head to be blocked, causing a headache.

1. Wind-cold

Exogenous headaches are mostly caused by external evils such as wind, cold, dampness, and heat, with wind being the main evil; internal injury headaches are related to the liver, spleen, and kidneys. In addition, trauma, falls, long-term illness affecting the meridians, qi stagnation, blood stasis, and obstruction of the blood vessels can also lead to headaches. You can first take appropriate painkillers such as paracetamol or ibuprofen to treat it.

2. Cold

Traditional Chinese medicine calls cold a common respiratory disease caused by a variety of viruses, of which 30%-50% are caused by a certain serotype of rhinovirus. Headaches caused by colds are quite common. Don’t worry too much. Once the cold is cured, the headache will also go away.

3. Migraine

Migraine headaches are pains that are felt differently on the left and right sides of the head. What Chinese medicine calls "left blood and right qi" means that the left side is related to blood. Left-sided migraine may be caused by insufficient blood or blockage. If there is blockage, use blood-activating and blood-stasis-removing herbs, and if there is insufficient blood, use blood to replenish the blood. Correspondingly, right-sided migraine is related to qi, and can be caused by qi-activating and qi-replenishing herbs. In addition, wind, heat, dampness, dryness, cold, and fire can all cause headaches and physical discomfort, and you should use herbal medicine to address these symptoms. For headaches caused by wind and cold, we use the pungent and dispersing herb. Schizonepeta, Perilla, and Cassia twig are pungent and warm, while mulberry leaves and chrysanthemum are pungent and cool.

4. Physical factors

Various causes of inflammation and injury inside and outside the skull can cause headaches; compression by tumors that causes vascular traction, stretching, displacement, and expansion; irritation of the meninges; muscle contraction; direct stimulation of the sensory nerves that control the head and face, etc.

5. Neuropsychiatric factors

When the body and mind are adversely stimulated by the external environment, emotions such as worry and anxiety often arise, leading to the onset of migraines. According to a survey, 84% of depression patients suffer from migraine symptoms. At the same time, when encountering various unpleasantness in life or work, or intense emotional stimulation such as anger, anxiety, excitement, etc., you will feel general discomfort and migraine.