Critical to See a Doctor If You Have Headaches

Headache is a common complaint and can occur for so many different reasons that its proper evaluation may be difficult.

Chronic headaches are commonly due to migraines, tension, or depression.

They may be related to intracranial lesions, head injury, cervical spondylosis, dental or ocular disease, temporal-mandibular joint dysfunction, sinusitis, hypertension, and a wide variety of general medical disorders.

The intensity, quality, and site of pain – and especially the duration of the headache and the presence of associated neurological symptoms may in fact provide clues to the underlying cause.

Tension-type headache

Although this is the most common type of primary headache disorder, many patients do not seek medical attention.

Patients frequently complain of pericranial tenderness, poor concentration, and other vague nonspecific symptoms.

Headaches may be made worse by emotional stress, fatigue, noise, or glare. The headaches are usually generalized, but may be most intense about the neck or back of the head, and are not associated with neurologic symptoms.

Depression headaches are frequently worse when rising in the morning and maybe accompanied by other symptoms of depression.

Migraine headaches may be lateralized or generalized, may be dull or throbbing, and are sometimes associated with anorexia, nausea, vomiting, photophobia, phonophobia, osmophobia, cognitive impairment, and blurring of vision.

Photophobia is a medical symptom of abnormal intolerance to the visual perception of light. It is an experience of discomfort or pain to the eyes due to light exposure or by the presence of actual physical sensitivity of the eyes.

Phonophobia is a fear of or aversion to loud sounds (for example fireworks).

If you have phonophobia, you will experience a highly intense reaction to any type of loud noise, no matter what its association or cause.

Osmophobia refers to fear, aversion, or psychological hypersensitivity to odors.

The phobia generally occurs in chronic migraine sufferers. They may experience odor-triggered migraines. Such migraines are most frequently triggered by foul odors, but the hypersensitivity may extend to all odors.

They usually build up gradually and may last for several hours or longer.

Management of migraine headaches consists of the avoidance of any precipitating factors, together with prophylactic or symptomatic pharmacologic treatment if necessary.

During acute attacks, many patients find it helpful to rest in a very quiet, darkened room until symptoms subside.

A simple analgesic that is taken right away often provides relief, but treatment with prescription therapy is sometimes necessary.

Preventative treatment may be necessary if migraine headaches occur more frequently than two or three times a month or significant disability is associated with the attacks.

Cluster headache affects predominantly middle-aged men. During attacks, patients are often restless and agitated. Episodes often occur at night, awaken the patient, and last for between 15 minutes and three hours.

Spontaneous remission then occurs, and the patient remains well for weeks or months before another bout of closely spaced attacks occurs. Bouts may last for 4 to 8 weeks and may occur up to several times per year.

During a bout, many patients report that alcohol triggers an attack; others report that stress, glare, or ingestion of specific foods occasionally precipitates the attack.

In occasional patients, typical attacks of pain and associated symptoms recur at intervals without remission. This variant is been referred to as chronic cluster headache.

Posttraumatic headache is a variety of non-specific symptoms that follow closed head injury, regardless of whether consciousness is lost.

The headache itself usually appears within a day or so following the injury, may worsen over the ensuing weeks, and then gradually subside.

It usually a constant dull ache, with superimposed throbbing that may be localized, lateralized, or generalized.

Severe head pain may be produced by coughing (and by straining, and sneezing, laughing) but, fortunately, it usually lasts only a few minutes or less.

In approximately half of all patients with chronic daily headaches, medication overuse is responsible. Patients present with chronic pain with complaints of severe headache unresponsive to medication.

Early initiation of a migraine preventive therapy permits withdrawal of analgesics and eventual relief of headache.