Patients frequently visit their doctor regarding headache-related discomfort. Ninety percent of these cases are due to a migraine, tension or a combination of the two. Although their causes are different, both can be managed using similar strategies.
Anyone suffering from regular headaches needs to look at their habits in regard to sleep, diet, stress management and exercise. It’s important to start a headache calendar to record when the headache starts, its symptoms, including any relevant lifestyle information from that day, and a corresponding food diary.
Some headaches prompt more urgent attention than others. The following symptoms require medical care: Headaches that wake you from sleep or get worse over several weeks, double vision, explosive start of a new, severe headache, a change in mental status, weakness, numbness, passing out or seizures.
Migraine headaches generally occur suddenly and intensely. Some people may experience a certain feeling, vision or sound (known as aura). Often felt on one side of the head, migraines are described as a throbbing, disabling headache often accompanied by nausea and sensitivity to light or sound, lasting hours or days. Often migraine sufferers have family members who experience these types of headaches as well. The cause is related to the dilation of blood vessels feeding the scalp and lining of the brain. Certain factors, like stress, a change in the weather, menses or fatigue, may prompt a migraine.
Thought mostly to be due to stress of the neck and scalp muscles, tension headaches usually cause a band-like pain across the forehead and temples and around the back of the head, and tenderness to the touch.
A third type of headache, making up much of the other ten percent, is withdrawal headache. Many people go to over-the-counter medications for relief of their headaches. For some, this works and the headache doesn’t return. For those who have not realized the root of the problem and worked to correct it, the headache will return. Using over-the-counter pain medications too frequently can often lead to headaches caused by withdrawal from the medication. Caffeine is frequently a cause of withdrawal headaches as well. Those using caffeine or any over-the-counter medications daily with the continuation of headaches, should gradually wean off of both over a couple weeks.
On the next page, learn how to control headaches through lifestyle and dietary habits.
