Headache – is complicated and not easy at all. People will often have headaches but in each case, every headache may have different symptoms, and different symptoms may have a set of their symptoms, and they can be triggered by completely different underlying causes – some headaches require external intervention.

If you know the type of headache you are suffering from, you can cooperate with your doctor to find the most suitable therapy in order to, possibly, get rid of the headache for good or at least for a longer while.

There are more than 150 types of headaches and here we will look at the most common ones:

Tension headaches

Most common type of headache occurring as a reaction to a mental stimulus. Tension headaches may be chronic or occasional:

• occasional – mostly lasting for 30 minutes, in some cases may stay up to one week. Pain can affect entire head or a part of it: pain can be unilateral like in migraine;
• if chronic, headache can appear during the night and radiate to the back of the head, neck area. During exercise the pain does not intensify, one may feel as if it “presses like a band", and headache can be accompanied by fatigue and nausea.

This type of headache is often associated with stress, poor lifestyle and sedentary regimen. If a person sits in one position for too long, muscles of the back and neck become tensed. This often triggers blood vessel spasms. This is the most common and most expensive type of headache in terms of costs that adults encounter. Tension headaches are a heterogeneous syndrome that affects both diagnostics and treatment. It is crucial to have a proper diagnosis before staring the treatment.

Migraine

Migraine is a seizure-type headache in left or right side of head, most commonly localised in fronto-orbital-temporal region. Darkness before eyes, headache accompanied by nausea, irritability, sensitivity to light and noise are typical migraine symptoms.

Migraine headache is pulsating. Migraine is mainly triggered by changes in weather, contraceptives, alcohol and currently widespread stress and nerve tension. Pain can last from 4 hours to 3 days and usually they happen one to four times a week. Pain can be accompanied also by other symptoms, such as sensitivity to light, noise or odours; nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite and abdominal pain. 

Cluster headaches

This type of headache is the most seldom, yet the most severe. Cluster headaches are believed to be the most intense and severe of the kind. You may experience intense burning or drilling, pulsating pain behind or around one eye. Pain can be so intense that most people suffering from cluster headaches cannot stay in one place and usually walk during the seizure. The eyelid droops, eye becomes red, pupils contact or eye waters in the affected side. In majority of cases this type of headache is not provoked and appears spontaneously.

They are called cluster headaches because they tend to repeat and come as if in groups. They can return one to three times a day during the cluster period and may last from 2 weeks to 3 months. Each seizure lasts from 15 minutes to 3 hours. Pain is so intense that they can wake you up from the sleep. Men tend to suffer from this type of headache three to four times more often than women.

Chronic daily headaches

Chronic daily headaches are observed in approximately 2-5% of general population. Even though they do not affect large proportion of people, it must be noted that chronic pain at least 15 times per month over a period of three months or more and lasting for at least 4 hours a day is rather unpleasant, disturbing and sometimes excruciating.

Usually, the cause of chronic daily headache is a symptom caused by other pathology or condition, such as chronic epilepsy, chronic tension headache; hemicrania continua; new persisting daily headache or chronic migraine.

Sinus headaches

These headaches manifest as scattered pain between the head and face – you feel deep and constant pain in the cheek bones, forehead or base of the nose. This pain is associated with inflammation of nasal sinuses – sinusitis.

As sinus inflammation is an infectious process and is often accompanied by fever and elevated temperature. Discomfort is made even worse with rapid head movements or when the body gets too tensed. Usually, this pain appears after upper respiratory tract infection, such as common cold.

Post-traumatic headache

Even though most of us encounter traumatic events in our lives, post-traumatic stress syndrome develops only in 9-25% of population. It is a special mental condition manifesting as a delayed or prolonged response to a psychologically traumatic event or a situation when a person is not capable of withstanding the emotional overload. Post-traumatic stress headaches usually start 2-3 days after the trauma. However, the headache is accompanied by memory problems, fatigue, difficulty focusing, irritability etc.

Headache can be dull, last for several months. If your condition does not improve within several weeks, consult with your doctor.