what is headache
What is Headache?
When a person says they have a headache, typically they are experiencing a certain kind of pain in their head or neck. Headaches are actually incredibly common. Nearly 70% of all people will experience a headache at some point within a year. A smaller, yet still significant number will suffer from reoccurring migraines, or even daily chronic headache pain.
Headache pain can vary from incident to incident and from person to person. Headache pain can be widespread across the entire head, parts of the face, and neck or very localized – occurring only on one side of your head, just around the eyes or sinuses, or perhaps just at the back of the head. Many people report feeling anything from dull, pressing pain, to sharp stabbing pain, to throbbing or pulsing sensations. Certain individuals will experience side effects from their headaches including nausea, dizziness, and sensitivity to light.
How do you know what kind of headache you are experiencing?
Tension headaches tend to cause pain that goes all the way around the head (and sometimes neck.) The sensation of pain is usually constant, not throbbing, and can feel light tight muscles or pressure. In the past, it was believed that tension headaches were caused by stress (hence the name) or poor posture. Recent research is starting to indicate that tension headaches may in fact have a neurological component that was previously not known.
Migraines are among the most dreaded of headaches. The pain of a migraine is usually quite intense and can last anywhere from hours to days. Unlike tension headaches, migraine pain is usually felt as a throbbing sensation. Many migraine sufferers also experience symptoms like nausea and a sensitivity to light. A smaller component will also experience aura symptoms before the onset of headache pain – such as visual distortions. Migraines are known to be caused by conditions in the brain not by stress or psychological factors as many people are led to mistakenly believe.
Cluster headaches are relatively uncommon and not widely known about. Cluster headaches get their name from the frequency with which they reoccur (say every hour for a certain number of days, every other day for a number of week, etc.) Cluster headaches can cause the most severe pain of all headaches. Usually what will happen is severe pain in the eye area will come on suddenly without warning, last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, and then disappear. During an attack there may be other noticable symptoms on the side of the head where pain is experienced including visible veins, redness, sweating, swollen eye lids, tearing in the eye, and nasal dripping. Cluster headache sufferers are also known for being unable to lie down when in the middle of an attack.
