Investigating and Understanding Headache
Headache or head pain occurs due to excess stimulation of nerve endings, as is the case in any other pain. Stimulation of nerves occurs due to tissue injury, distension of viscera including brain or some other factors. In the process of headache, large intracranial vessels and dura matter (both of these structures are supplied by trigeminal nerve) are structures involved. The trigeminal nociceptors send signals to the pain modulatory systems and cause pain (headache).
Headache may be of acute onset (with severe form of headache) or headache may be present for many years which recurs and the diagnosis of two different clinical presentations are different. In general the possibility of serious underlying cause of headache is much more in acute onset severe headache than long duration recurrent mild or moderate headache. That is why patients with acute onset severe headache requires prompt and careful evaluation of headache and quick initiation of appropriate medical therapy.Health, Hydration and Headaches
Today we have Brett Warren, a biochemical engineer from Boston, Massachusetts as guest blogger in this Health Blog. Here is his excellent first guest post:
Have you ever had a headache that was so severe that it made you want to throw up? If so, you probably said to yourself, "migraine!" You may have felt weak, your vision may have blurred, and you may have been forced to take some sort of anti-inflammatory (Tylenol, aspirin, naproxen, etc.) and go to bed for the duration. And maybe you were right -- maybe it was a migraine, and maybe it was triggered by stress, an allergy, a missed meal, or even hormonal fluctuations.
On the other hand, especially if your headache began toward the hottest part of the day at the height of this summer's unending heat wave (according to WebMD, headache risk rises 7.5 percent for every nine degrees Fahrenheit), maybe you just needed some water. And maybe the two Tylenols that you took weren't what cured your headache -- maybe it was the glass of water or cup of tea that you took them with.
Categories: Guest Posts, Headache Tags: Headache
Know about Different Types of Headache
Headache is one of the most common health problems that doctors and other medical professionals encounter in clinical practice. Patient seeking medical attention to get relief from headache is common. But headache is not an easy clinical problem to deal with and doctors find it often difficult to treat headache successfully as it is difficult to find out a cause for headache.
Careful clinical examination, complete history taking along with judicious use of investigations (such as CT scan, MRI, EEG etc.) is essential to determine the cause of headache and at times it may not be possible to find out the cause of headache despite extensive investigations.
According to International Headache Society classification headache is classified into primary headache and secondary headache. When the headache is the primary symptom and others symptoms are related to headache it is primary headache and if headache is due to pathology somewhere and headache is associated symptom and not primary symptom is called secondary headache.
Categories: Headache Tags: International Headache Society, tension-type headache
