How do we get headaches? | 'Common Doubts' S01E02

Headaches can range from annoying to extremely painful. People may experience throbbing, squeezing, or constant or intermittent pain in the back of the head and upper neck or behind the eyes. Some people feel tightness or pressure at the temples.

The most common cause of headaches is muscle tension. Other common causes of headaches include fever, head injury, viral infections, sinusitis, and migraines. Headaches can be the body’s reaction to emotional stress, grief, too much or too little sleep, or depression. Some people get a headache after physical exertion, crying, eye strain, or sex.

A person with a headache has discomfort or pain beneath the scalp or forehead, behind the eyes, or arising from the head or upper neck. While headaches may occur occasionally or frequently, they are still the most common nervous system disorder,

PRIMARY HEADACHES

Primary headaches are stand-alone illnesses caused directly by the overactivity of, or problems with, structures in the head that are pain-sensitive.

SECONDARY HEADACHES

Secondary headaches are symptoms that happen when another condition stimulates the pain-sensitive nerves of the head. In other words, the headache symptoms can be attributed to another cause.

TYPES OF HEADACHES

Tension Headaches

Tension headaches are the most common form of primary headache. Such headaches normally begin slowly and gradually in the middle of the day.

Migraines

A migraine headache may cause a pulsating, throbbing pain usually only on one side of the head.
Rebound headaches
Rebound or medication-overuse headaches stem from an excessive use of medication to treat headache symptoms. They are the most common cause of secondary headaches. They usually begin early in the day and persist throughout the day. They may improve with pain medication, but worsen when its effects wear off.

Cluster headaches

Cluster headaches usually last between 15 minutes and 3 hours, and they occur suddenly once per day up to eight times per day for a period of weeks to months. In between clusters, there may be no headache symptoms, and this headache-free period can last months to years.

Thunderclap headaches

A thunderclap headache is often secondary to life-threatening conditions, such as intracerebral hemorhage, cerebral venous thrombosis, ruptured or unruptured aneurysms, reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RVS), meningitis, and pituitary apoplexy.

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