So too can one get rebound from a pain killer taken for headaches.  Doctors from the Long Island Jewish Hospital, in a report to the American Pain Society, studied 90 patients with chronic headaches and found that a significant proportion of them did indeed have analgesic "rebound", that is, their headaches came back--possibly even worse--after short-acting pain killers wore off.  Most of the patients had some form of migraine headache, but others had tension or other varieties of headaches.  And it did not matter much whether the patient was using over-the-counter pain killers or prescribed drugs.

This "rebound" concept is not well known; 95% of the patients in this study did not know it could occur.  On the other hand, almost half of the patients in this study did get relief of headache pain without rebound.

Hope for those who get headache "rebound" from short acting analgesics means avoiding the headache to begin with.  Easier said than done, but patients can spot certain headache triggers, such as loud noise, cigarette smoke, certain foods in some people, or even lack of sleep or exercise.  There are also non-pain killing drugs which can be taken long-term to help prevent headaches.  For a copy of this script, access our web site, speakingofhealth.com.  Speaking of Health, I'm Dr. Steven Andrew Davis for CBS News.