The 4 Main Types of Headaches Explained

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

• Primary Headache
• Migraine Headaches
• Tension-Type Headaches
• Cluster Headaches
• New Daily Persistent Headache
• Hemicrania Continua
• Secondary Headache
• Rebound or Medication Overuse Headache
• Sinus Headaches
• Posttraumatic Headache
• Thunderclap Headache
• More

They’re annoying, even painful, but most headaches aren’t dangerous and are easy to treat with a basic pain reliever.

If your headaches are severe, happen a lot, or come with other symptoms, talk to your doctor about what kind of headache you might have. Together, you can choose the right treatment and maybe prevent them.

This means the headache itself is the main medical condition. This includes:

• Migraines
• Tension-type headaches
• Cluster headaches
• New daily persistent headaches

It’s probably a primary headache if:

• You’ve had it for many months or years.
• Your family has a history of similar headaches.
• You don’t have any other health problems.
• It’s triggered by
  • Hormones
  • Weather
  • Foods
  • Lights, sounds, or smells

Migraine headaches are some of the hardest types of headaches to live with. They usually begin with an intense, throbbing pain on one side of the head, which may spread. They also often cause nausea and vomiting. A migraine can last a few hours to many days and can make people sensitive to lights, smells, and sounds.

For some people, a warning sign called an aura comes just before a migraine attack. It can be a set of visual symptoms, like seeing flickering lights, blind spots, or zigzag lines, or other signs like numbness in a limb or a strange smell.

Doctors aren’t sure what causes migraine headaches. Most experts believe that they begin in the nervous system. Because migraines often run in families, it seems likely that genes play a role, too.

For people who have migraines, many things can bring on an attack. Common triggers include:

• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Certain foods or smells
• Dry winds
• Changes in altitude or seasons
• Changes in hormones such as with menstruation
• Birth control pills
• Missing a meal
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Neck pain
• Stuffy rooms
• Stress or tension

Migraines may follow intense emotions such as excitement or anger. Exercise, sex, other types of headaches, or very cold foods can also start a migraine.

Almost everyone gets these from time to time. They bring a dull, constant, non-throbbing pain that can make you feel as if your head is wrapped in a tight band. You’ll usually feel pain on both sides of your head or neck, not just on one side.

Triggers can include:

• Stress
• Trouble sleeping
• Neck pain
• Hunger
• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Depression
• Poor posture
• Jaw or dental problems

Your neck muscles may seem knotted, and parts of your head and neck may be sensitive to touch.

These headaches aren’t typically made worse by physical activity, light, smells, or sounds. And they usually don’t come with nausea and vomiting.

Tension-type headaches can be short-lived and happen rarely, or they can last a while and come back often. They’re “episodic” if you get them fewer than 15 days a month. They’re “chronic” if you get them more often than that.

These got their name because they tend to come in bunches over weeks. An average cluster can go on for 6 to 12 weeks. Typically, they start hours after you fall asleep. Sometimes, a mild ache will warn you that a cluster headache is coming.

The pain is only on one side of your head. It’s often near or around your eye. It is severe and piercing, and it peaks within minutes. Your eye on the affected side becomes red and watery. And you often have nasal congestion with a runny nose on that side.

This headache lasts 15 minutes to 3 hours and then fades or disappears, only to come back a day or so later. Some people can have eight or more attacks in a day.

Cluster headaches can strike every day for weeks or months and then stay away for a long time. They’re more common in men and tend to start between ages 25 and 50. Heavy smokers get them more often than nonsmokers. Stress, drinking alcohol, and eating certain foods play a role in triggering the headaches for some people, but doctors don’t know the root cause of them.

These may start suddenly and can go on for 3 months or longer. Many people clearly remember the day their pain began.

Doctors aren’t sure why this type of headache happens . Some people find that it strikes after an infection, flu-like illness, surgery, or stressful event.

The pain tends to be moderate, but for some people, it’s severe. And it’s often hard to treat.

Symptoms can vary widely. Some are like tension headaches. Others share symptoms of migraine, such as nausea or sensitivity to light.

This ongoing headache almost always affects the same side of your face. It usually responds to the pain medication indomethacin.

Your doctor may diagnose hemicrania continua if you have head pain continuously for at least 3 months, and it doesn’t shift sides or go away. It’s usually moderate but can get better or worse, at times turning into brief, piercing pain.

There are two types:

• Chronic. You have daily headaches.
• Remitting. You have headaches for 6 months. They go away for weeks or months and come back.

You may notice:

• Worse pain with alcohol or physical activity
• Red or teary eyes
• Runny or stuffy nose
• Droopy eyelid
• Narrow iris

Some people also have migraine symptoms like:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Sensitivity to light and sound

This type of headache is caused by another medical condition. In other words, the headache is a symptom of something else. Conditions that can cause it include:

• High blood pressure
• Infections
• Injury
• Blood vessel problems

It may be a secondary headache if:

• It’s the worst headache you’ve ever had.
• It’s the first headache you’ve ever had.
• It came on quickly, with no warning.
• The pattern changes.
• It started before you were 5 years old or after you were 50.
• You have cancer or HIV.
• You’re pregnant.
• You have an underlying health condition.
• The headache causes fainting or seizures.
• You get the headache after you exercise, have sex, or squeeze your body.

They’re not all alike. See which of these common types of secondary headache sounds like yours.

If you take headache medicine too often, it can backfire. Your pain can come on stronger and more often. Doctors call this a “rebound” or “medication overuse” headache.

You’ll need to work with your doctor to find the right treatment. Often, you just have to cut back on the medicine you take.

Sinus headaches come with pain in the forehead, nose, cheeks, eyes, and sometimes the top of the head. In some cases, they also make you feel pressure behind your face. Nasal congestion and blockage from seasonal allergies or an infection that leads to sinus congestion is the main cause.

If you bend down or lean over, the pain can get worse. Cold and damp weather can make it hurt more, too.

Sinus headaches aren’t common. After you treat one, it doesn’t usually come back. Many people who think they’re having sinus headaches actually have migraines.

This usually starts 2 or 3 days after a head injury. You’ll feel:

• A dull ache that gets worse from time to time
• Vertigo
• Lightheadedness
• Trouble concentrating
• Memory problems
• Tiring quickly
• Irritability

You should seek help if you’ve had trauma to your head.

A posttraumatic headache may last a few months. But if it doesn’t get better within a couple of weeks, call your doctor.

People often call this the worst headache of their life. The peak intensity of the headache usually happens within a minute. It requires immediate medical attention.  Causes of this type of headache include:

• Blood vessel tear, rupture, or blockage
• Head injury
• Hemorrhagic stroke from a ruptured blood vessel in your brain
• Ischemic stroke from a blocked blood vessel in your brain due to a blood clot or plaque
• Narrowed blood vessels surrounding the brain
• Inflamed blood vessels
• Blood pressure changes in late pregnancy

Take a sudden new headache seriously. It’s often the only warning sign of a serious problem.

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The 4 Main Types of Headaches Explained

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

• Primary Headache
• Migraine Headaches
• Tension-Type Headaches
• Cluster Headaches
• New Daily Persistent Headache
• Hemicrania Continua
• Secondary Headache
• Rebound or Medication Overuse Headache
• Sinus Headaches
• Posttraumatic Headache
• Thunderclap Headache
• More

They’re annoying, even painful, but most headaches aren’t dangerous and are easy to treat with a basic pain reliever.

If your headaches are severe, happen a lot, or come with other symptoms, talk to your doctor about what kind of headache you might have. Together, you can choose the right treatment and maybe prevent them.

This means the headache itself is the main medical condition. This includes:

• Migraines
• Tension-type headaches
• Cluster headaches
• New daily persistent headaches

It’s probably a primary headache if:

• You’ve had it for many months or years.
• Your family has a history of similar headaches.
• You don’t have any other health problems.
• It’s triggered by
  • Hormones
  • Weather
  • Foods
  • Lights, sounds, or smells

Migraine headaches are some of the hardest types of headaches to live with. They usually begin with an intense, throbbing pain on one side of the head, which may spread. They also often cause nausea and vomiting. A migraine can last a few hours to many days and can make people sensitive to lights, smells, and sounds.

For some people, a warning sign called an aura comes just before a migraine attack. It can be a set of visual symptoms, like seeing flickering lights, blind spots, or zigzag lines, or other signs like numbness in a limb or a strange smell.

Doctors aren’t sure what causes migraine headaches. Most experts believe that they begin in the nervous system. Because migraines often run in families, it seems likely that genes play a role, too.

For people who have migraines, many things can bring on an attack. Common triggers include:

• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Certain foods or smells
• Dry winds
• Changes in altitude or seasons
• Changes in hormones such as with menstruation
• Birth control pills
• Missing a meal
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Neck pain
• Stuffy rooms
• Stress or tension

Migraines may follow intense emotions such as excitement or anger. Exercise, sex, other types of headaches, or very cold foods can also start a migraine.

Almost everyone gets these from time to time. They bring a dull, constant, non-throbbing pain that can make you feel as if your head is wrapped in a tight band. You’ll usually feel pain on both sides of your head or neck, not just on one side.

Triggers can include:

• Stress
• Trouble sleeping
• Neck pain
• Hunger
• Alcohol
• Caffeine
• Depression
• Poor posture
• Jaw or dental problems

Your neck muscles may seem knotted, and parts of your head and neck may be sensitive to touch.

These headaches aren’t typically made worse by physical activity, light, smells, or sounds. And they usually don’t come with nausea and vomiting.

Tension-type headaches can be short-lived and happen rarely, or they can last a while and come back often. They’re “episodic” if you get them fewer than 15 days a month. They’re “chronic” if you get them more often than that.

These got their name because they tend to come in bunches over weeks. An average cluster can go on for 6 to 12 weeks. Typically, they start hours after you fall asleep. Sometimes, a mild ache will warn you that a cluster headache is coming.

The pain is only on one side of your head. It’s often near or around your eye. It is severe and piercing, and it peaks within minutes. Your eye on the affected side becomes red and watery. And you often have nasal congestion with a runny nose on that side.

This headache lasts 15 minutes to 3 hours and then fades or disappears, only to come back a day or so later. Some people can have eight or more attacks in a day.

Cluster headaches can strike every day for weeks or months and then stay away for a long time. They’re more common in men and tend to start between ages 25 and 50. Heavy smokers get them more often than nonsmokers. Stress, drinking alcohol, and eating certain foods play a role in triggering the headaches for some people, but doctors don’t know the root cause of them.

These may start suddenly and can go on for 3 months or longer. Many people clearly remember the day their pain began.

Doctors aren’t sure why this type of headache happens . Some people find that it strikes after an infection, flu-like illness, surgery, or stressful event.

The pain tends to be moderate, but for some people, it’s severe. And it’s often hard to treat.

Symptoms can vary widely. Some are like tension headaches. Others share symptoms of migraine, such as nausea or sensitivity to light.

This ongoing headache almost always affects the same side of your face. It usually responds to the pain medication indomethacin.

Your doctor may diagnose hemicrania continua if you have head pain continuously for at least 3 months, and it doesn’t shift sides or go away. It’s usually moderate but can get better or worse, at times turning into brief, piercing pain.

There are two types:

• Chronic. You have daily headaches.
• Remitting. You have headaches for 6 months. They go away for weeks or months and come back.

You may notice:

• Worse pain with alcohol or physical activity
• Red or teary eyes
• Runny or stuffy nose
• Droopy eyelid
• Narrow iris

Some people also have migraine symptoms like:

• Nausea and vomiting
• Sensitivity to light and sound

This type of headache is caused by another medical condition. In other words, the headache is a symptom of something else. Conditions that can cause it include:

• High blood pressure
• Infections
• Injury
• Blood vessel problems

It may be a secondary headache if:

• It’s the worst headache you’ve ever had.
• It’s the first headache you’ve ever had.
• It came on quickly, with no warning.
• The pattern changes.
• It started before you were 5 years old or after you were 50.
• You have cancer or HIV.
• You’re pregnant.
• You have an underlying health condition.
• The headache causes fainting or seizures.
• You get the headache after you exercise, have sex, or squeeze your body.

They’re not all alike. See which of these common types of secondary headache sounds like yours.

If you take headache medicine too often, it can backfire. Your pain can come on stronger and more often. Doctors call this a “rebound” or “medication overuse” headache.

You’ll need to work with your doctor to find the right treatment. Often, you just have to cut back on the medicine you take.

Sinus headaches come with pain in the forehead, nose, cheeks, eyes, and sometimes the top of the head. In some cases, they also make you feel pressure behind your face. Nasal congestion and blockage from seasonal allergies or an infection that leads to sinus congestion is the main cause.

If you bend down or lean over, the pain can get worse. Cold and damp weather can make it hurt more, too.

Sinus headaches aren’t common. After you treat one, it doesn’t usually come back. Many people who think they’re having sinus headaches actually have migraines.

This usually starts 2 or 3 days after a head injury. You’ll feel:

• A dull ache that gets worse from time to time
• Vertigo
• Lightheadedness
• Trouble concentrating
• Memory problems
• Tiring quickly
• Irritability

You should seek help if you’ve had trauma to your head.

A posttraumatic headache may last a few months. But if it doesn’t get better within a couple of weeks, call your doctor.

People often call this the worst headache of their life. The peak intensity of the headache usually happens within a minute. It requires immediate medical attention. Causes of this type of headache include:

• Blood vessel tear, rupture, or blockage
• Head injury
• Hemorrhagic stroke from a ruptured blood vessel in your brain
• Ischemic stroke from a blocked blood vessel in your brain due to a blood clot or plaque
• Narrowed blood vessels surrounding the brain
• Inflamed blood vessels
• Blood pressure changes in late pregnancy

Take a sudden new headache seriously. It’s often the only warning sign of a serious problem.

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Types of headaches – VESNA Clinic

2021/02/08
👁 941

WHO estimates that more than half of adults suffer from headaches at least once a year. They prevent them from leading a normal life, work and force them to spend money on painkillers. There are many reasons for this condition, from lack of sleep to serious illnesses. The most common cause is stress, excessive fatigue and exercise. Therefore, headaches are divided into several types, depending on the cause.

What are the types

Headaches are primary and secondary. Primary headache is not a sign of any disease and usually occurs due to excessive physical or mental activity. It is not associated with diseases of the brain, blood vessels or other parts of the head and neck.

Common types of primary headache include:

• Beam (cluster). Occurs suddenly, often in the middle of the night. The pain usually starts in one eye but can then spread to other areas of the head. There is also swelling on the affected side, redness or pallor of the face. The pain comes on intermittently. Such a period lasts several weeks or months, for example, every spring or autumn. The exact cause of cluster pain is unknown, but there are risk factors in which cluster pain occurs more often – these are smoking, alcohol, and heredity. Sometimes such pain can occur after sexual contact.

• Migraine. Severe, throbbing pain that is often associated with nausea, vomiting, and increased sensitivity to light and sound. Often before the onset of a migraine attack, an aura appears – flashes of light, tingling of the face, arms, legs, or difficulty speaking. Without treatment, a migraine attack usually lasts four hours to three days.

• Tension headache. Feels like a mild to moderate dull aching pain, sometimes described as a pressure band around the head. Most often occurs due to lack of sleep, severe mental stress, stress or physical activity. To get rid of such pain most often helps: the correct regimen of the day and rest, sports and psychotherapy.

Secondary headaches occur in the background of another disease. Almost any disease or condition can be accompanied by a headache, so in such cases, the head stops hurting after recovery. Most common options:

• Infection: fever with intoxication, persistent cough, sinusitis, sinusitis, otitis media and others

• Eye diseases: glaucoma, astigmatism, incorrectly fitted glasses

• Cardiovascular diseases: hypertension, arterial hypotension, arrhythmias

• Diseases of the spine: osteochondrosis, herniated discs

• Traumatic brain injuries

• Alcohol intoxication

• Vascular anomalies: aneurysm, arteriovenous malformation, dissection of cerebral arteries

• Acute or chronic cerebrovascular accident: stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic), discirculatory encephalopathy

• Volumetric formations of the brain

There are unusual causes for headaches. For example, a headache from a cold – when the head starts to hurt if you eat ice cream, drink an icy drink or immerse yourself in cold water. There is also pain from being squeezed by a tight cap or goggles. But such pains disappear immediately after the disappearance of the cause.

When to see a doctor

Primary headaches usually go away on their own, after rest or a single pill (NSAID). If headaches become regular, are not stopped by analgesics, are localized in one place, intensify or manifest additional symptoms, then you need to consult a neurologist. In this case, the doctor will conduct an examination and prescribe certain studies to exclude serious causes of the problem and prescribe treatment.

Urgent medical assistance is needed in the following cases:

• if the headache is unbearable, accompanied by nausea, vomiting,

• depression of consciousness, difficulty speaking, walking, weakness in limbs,

• if the nature of the patient’s habitual headache has changed,

• oppression of consciousness,

• high fever accompanied by severe headache.

Today, in the “Expert Opinion” column, our neurologist Alexander Andreevich Khripunov talks about headaches – what they are, and what to do with them.

WHO estimates that more than half of adults suffer from headaches at least once a year. There are many reasons for their appearance, from lack of sleep to serious illnesses. The most common cause is stress, excessive fatigue and exercise. Therefore, headaches are divided into several types, depending on the cause.

Headaches are either primary or secondary. Primary headache is not a sign of any disease and usually occurs due to excessive physical or mental activity. It is not associated with diseases of the brain, blood vessels or other parts of the head and neck.

The most common types of primary headache:

Cluster headache

Occurs suddenly, often in the middle of the night. The pain usually starts in one eye but can then spread to other areas of the head. The pain comes on intermittently. The exact cause of cluster pain is unknown, but there are risk factors in which cluster pain occurs more often – these are smoking, alcohol, and heredity.

Migraine

Severe throbbing pain that is often associated with nausea, vomiting and increased sensitivity to light and sound. Often before the onset of a migraine attack, an aura appears – flashes of light, tingling of the face, arms, legs, or difficulty speaking. Without treatment, a migraine attack usually lasts four hours to three days.

Tension headache

Feels like a mild to moderate dull aching pain, sometimes described as a pressure band around the head. Most often occurs due to lack of sleep, severe mental stress, stress or physical activity. To get rid of such pain most often helps: the correct regimen of the day and rest, sports and psychotherapy.

• Beam (cluster). Occurs suddenly, often in the middle of the night. The pain usually starts in one eye but can then spread to other areas of the head. There is also swelling on the affected side, redness or pallor of the face. The pain comes on intermittently. Such a period lasts several weeks or months, for example, every spring or autumn. The exact cause of cluster pain is unknown, but there are risk factors in which cluster pain occurs more often – these are smoking, alcohol, and heredity. Sometimes such pain can occur after sexual contact.

• Migraine. Severe, throbbing pain that is often associated with nausea, vomiting, and increased sensitivity to light and sound. Often before the onset of a migraine attack, an aura appears – flashes of light, tingling of the face, arms, legs, or difficulty speaking. Without treatment, a migraine attack usually lasts four hours to three days.

• Tension headache. Feels like a mild to moderate dull aching pain, sometimes described as a pressure band around the head. Most often occurs due to lack of sleep, severe mental stress, stress or physical activity. To get rid of such pain most often helps: the correct regimen of the day and rest, sports and psychotherapy.

Tension headache – (Clinic Di Center)

Headache? Don’t stress yourself

There is hardly a single person in the world who has never had a headache in his life. Sometimes the pain is frequent and prolonged, but usually people are faced with the fact that the head hurts “from overwork”, from case to case. And then doctors make a diagnosis of tension headache.

What kind of voltage are we talking about? And why do some people get headaches more often than others? Let’s try to figure it out.

Tension headache is the most common form of headache. According to statistics, it accounts for more than 80% of all headaches. In Europe, 78% of women and 64% of men face it at least once a year. Other types of headache are relatively rare.

The good news is that although tension headaches are fairly common, the pain itself is usually relatively mild. Roughly speaking, the head does not “split from pain”, but rather “aches”. However, usually this is enough to seriously ruin a person’s life. For example, Danish doctors found that 12% of those suffering from tension headaches completely lose their ability to work during an attack. Well, if such pain becomes chronic, it is very difficult for a person to live.

Woe from Wit

Physicians began to deal with tension headaches only in the second half of the 19th century, before that it was believed that there were more serious illnesses. To begin with, scientists described the symptoms of the disease: monotonous, dull, pressing pain that does not have a clear localization, does not increase with physical exertion, and is not accompanied by nausea. The cause of the pain could not yet be found out, however, in the medical articles of the 19th century it was noted that this type of headache usually occurs in people of mental labor and persons prone to “a mild form of hysteria. ” It turned out that the head hurts from nervous and mental overexertion.

It was proposed to treat headaches in the spirit of that time: a combination of gymnastics, ice baths and taking opium tincture. Now the last method of treatment seems wild, but then many doctors believed in the healing power of narcotic drugs, for example, almost every pharmacy sold medicines containing coca extract as a remedy for asthma.

Significant progress in the study of the causes of tension-type headache occurred in the 60s of the XX century. Then scientists suggested that prolonged tension in the muscles of the head and neck leads to narrowing of arterial vessels and spasm of capillaries that provide muscle nutrition. As a result, the muscles are not sufficiently supplied with blood, become lethargic and edematous due to the accumulation of metabolic products in them. At some point, all these factors lead to a headache. It turned out that problems arise not because of intense mental work, but because of what accompanies it: a static posture during written work, a constantly tense neck, a head bowed over a desk. ..

Are all diseases from nerves?

The latest research has proven that it is not only about the muscles, but also about the work of the central nervous system. It is known that each person has his own threshold of pain sensitivity: for one, a slight prick with a pin seems very painful, while the other may not even notice it. The suppression of pain sensitivity in the human body is carried out by the antinociceptive system, which consists of the hypothalamus, as well as the structures of the midbrain and medulla oblongata, which direct fibers to the nociceptive neurons of the spinal cord and control their activity. The better this system works, the less a person feels pain.

Unfortunately, sometimes the antinociceptive system begins to fail. As a rule, this is due to emotional stress and excessively intense mental work. For example, in a situation of preparing for an exam, the student’s nervous system may be overloaded, which leads to the fact that the internal protection against pain begins to weaken. The same nerve impulses that come from the tension of the muscles of the neck and head, in a normal state, would not give painful sensations, since they would be blocked by the antinociceptive system. But when, due to overloads, it works worse, a person begins to feel that he has a headache.

How to break the vicious circle

It would seem that everything is clear: you need to lead a healthy lifestyle, walk more often, get enough sleep, and not overload yourself with work. But there are two problems. Firstly, in modern conditions of life, it is quite difficult to avoid stress and overload. Secondly, having appeared several times, a tension headache begins to literally entangle a person with a cobweb.

When a person has a headache, his mood deteriorates, he becomes less active, more lethargic. Regular pain limits his professional and personal opportunities, disrupts his life plans, which, in turn, leads to additional stress and depression.