HolPlus

Disease & Conditions

Headache

What causes headaches

Headache:

Headache & its common causes:
Medically termed as cephalgia headache is a condition in which a person may undergo mild to severe pain in the head and sometimes neck or upper back pain may also be interpreted as a headache. Headaches may origin from a wide variety of causes, ranging from eyestrain, sinusitis and tension to life-threatening conditions such as encephalitis, meningitis, cerebral aneurysms and brain tumors. The headache occuring in conjunction with a head injury, its cause is usually quite evident & traceable. However in many cases the causes orn the root of origin are more unclear. The most common form of headache is a tension headache which is caused by stress or anxiety while some other causes may be dehydration & caffiene withdrawal etc.
Types of headaches:

Medically headaches are broadly categorized into four types, e.g. vascular, myogenic or muscle tension, traction and lastly inflammatory. Migraine is one of the most common forms of vascular headaches. In general the severe pains on both of the head may easily characterize migraine headache, which may also bear the signs of an upset stomach and sometimes disturbed or blurred vision. Migraine is very common in women. Cluster headaches, which causes repetitive episodes of severe pain and headache due to high blood pressure is another type of vascular headache. Prior to migraine another very common type of vascular headache is the toxic headache often produced by fever. Muscular or myogenic headaches have the common roots of origin, which involves the tightening of facial and neck muscles, and may often radiate to the fore head. Tension headache is a very common form of the type. Traction or inflammatory headaches are generally symptoms or sign bearers of other disorders of the body, which may range from sinus infection to stroke.

Diagnosis:

In general headaches may harmless and self-limiting but some of the specific types may be warning signals of more serious disorders, which may demand testing, and diagnostic tests. In such specific cases computed tomography common forms forms of which are CT/CAT scans of the brain or sinuses are commonly performed, or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in specific settings. Blood tests also helps in narrowing down the differential diagnosis, but they rarely confirm the specific headache forms or the reaso of their occurence.