MEDICAL NEWS: STRESS HEADACHE RELIEF-HOT TUB + COFFEE

January 3, 2009

Sound too good to be true?

Normally you wouldn’t think that soaking in a hot tub and coffee go together.  The tub relaxes you and the caffeine gets you going.  However, if you jump in your hot tub for a short time-say 10 minutes, you’ll find that you’re revved up and ready to go. If you sometimes suffer from stress headaches and ibuprofen is your pain reliever of choice, you’ll be interested in research from the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago.

We all know that soaking in your Hot Spring Spa can help relieve tension and the kind of stress that causes headaches.  Also, a combination of caffeine and ibuprofen appears to bring faster and longer lasting relief from tension headaches than either substance taken alone. And, while it’s well known that caffeine helps pain relievers work better, this is the first clinical study to show that caffeine alone can work as an analgesic.

Researchers gave volunteers either ibuprofen, ibuprofen and caffeine, or a dummy pill.  In the first hour and a half, the group taking caffeine alone had just as much pain relief as the ibuprofen/caffeine group indicating initially that caffeine was responsible for the actual analgesic effect.

A number of pain medication contain caffeine, but for now no manufacturer makes an ibuprofen/caffeine combination. It seems that you can get the same effect by taking ibuprofen with a cup of coffee or two.

More research is needed on the ibuprofen/caffeine pain relief connection.  We do know that  even faster, more effective tension relief can result if you hop in the hot tub after taking ibuprofen with a cup of coffee.  Soaking speeds up your circulation and makes both substances work more quickly on your headache!  Many of our Olympic Hot Tub Company customers have told us that this is a sure cure for a tension headache.

After New Year’s Eve, you may have sought hangover headache relief…yes, soaking in your Hot Spring Spa “the morning after” speeds recovery.

SANUM PER AQUA. Latin for Health through water.