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Cephalalgia
Common Names: Headache
A headache (cephalalgia in medical terminology) is a condition of pain in the head; sometimes neck or upper back pain may also be interpreted as a headache. It ranks amongst the most common local pain complaints.
The vast majority of headaches are benign and self-limiting. Common causes are tension, migraine, eye strain, dehydration, low blood sugar, and sinusitis. Much rarer are headaches due to life-threatening conditions such as meningitis, encephalitis, cerebral aneurysms, and brain tumors. When the headache occurs in conjunction with a head injury the cause is usually quite evident.
Treatment of uncomplicated headache is usually symptomatic with over-the-counter painkillers such as aspirin, paracetamol (acetaminophen) or ibuprofen, although some specific forms of headaches (e.g., migraines) may demand other, more suitable treatment. It may be possible to relate the occurrence of a headache to other particular triggers (such as stress or particular foods), which can then be avoided.
Pathophysiology
The brain in itself is not sensitive to pain, because it lacks pain-sensitive nerve fibers. Several areas of the head can hurt, including a network of nerves which extends over the scalp and certain nerves in the face, mouth, and throat. The meninges and the blood vessels do have pain perception. Headaches often result from traction to or irritation of the meninges and blood vessels. The muscles of the head may similarly be sensitive to pain.
Types
There are five types of headache: vascular, myogenic (muscle tension), cervicogenic, traction, and inflammatory.
- Vascular
- The most common type of vascular headache is migraine. Migraine headaches are usually characterized by severe pain on one or both sides of the head, an upset stomach, and, for some people, disturbed vision. It is more common in women. While vascular changes are evident during a migraine, the cause of the headache is neurologic, not vascular. After migraine, the most common type of vascular headache is the "toxic" headache produced by fever.
- Other kinds of vascular headaches include cluster headaches, which cause repeated episodes of intense pain, and headaches resulting from high blood pressure (rare).
- Muscular/myogenic headaches appear to involve the tightening or tensing of facial and neck muscles; they may radiate to the forehead. Tension headache is the most common form of myogenic headache.
- Cervicogenic headaches originate from disorders of the neck, including the anatomical structures innervated by the cervical roots C1–C3. Cervical headache is often precipitated by neck movement and/or sustained awkward head positioning. It is often accompanied by restricted cervical range of motion, ipsilateral neck, shoulder, or arm pain of a rather vague non-radicular nature or, occasionally, arm pain of a radicular nature.
- Traction and inflammatory headaches are symptoms of other disorders, ranging from stroke to sinus infection.
Specific types of headaches include:
- Tension headache
- Migraine
Ictal headache
- "Brain freeze" (also known as: ice cream headache
- Thunderclap headache
- Vascular headache
- Toxic headache
- Coital cephalalgia (also known as: sex headache)
- Sinus headache
- Hemicrania continua
- Rebound headache (also called medication overuse headache, abbreviated MOH/li>
- Red wine headache
- "Spinal headache" (or: post-dural puncture headaches) after lumbar puncture or related procedure that will lower the intracranial pressure
Like other types of pain, headaches can serve as warning signals of more serious disorders. This is particularly true for headaches caused by inflammation, including those related to meningitis as well as those resulting from diseases of the sinuses, spine, neck, ears and teeth.
Text and images are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. Material is used from the Wikipedia article "Cephalalgia".
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