eucalyptus oil

One of the oldest remedies for headache is peppermint oil.  In fact, peppermint has been used for medicinally for many things, and studies continue to ascertain how it can be best used.

Peppermint oil has been taken for irritable bowel syndrome, a common complaint of migraineurs.  But what about applying the essential oil to the temples – externally?

A small study was one in Germany to see what oils may be best for headache patients.  Four different oil combinations were used, and two had results that may be helpful for our purposes:

• Peppermint oil and eucalyptus oil:  Though this combination didn’t seem to be the best for headache pain, it did had a muscle-relaxing and mental-relaxing effect.
• Peppermint oil:  Peppermint oil alone did seem to fight the pain of headache.

Both preparations were given in a mix with ethanol.

You’ll be looking for a 100% essential oil if you want to give this a try, such as Aura Cacia Peppermint Pure Essential Oil from Vitacost.  Aura Cacia also has Eucalyptus Pure Essential Oil.

Eucalyptus and peppermint are also common ingredients in skin rubs for sore muscles or congestion.  I imagine some of these would work well on the temples as well.

Read the study abstract here:  Effect of peppermint and eucalyptus oil preparations on neurophysiological and experimental algesimetric headache parameters.
via: Headache News Blog