Types, Symptoms and Treatments of Headache's
In this article we're going to look at headaches . The main catagorizes of the headaches and then how to treat them as well. So headaches can be catagorize into the two main types.
We have the primary headaches and then we have secondary headaches. Secondary headaches are pretty bad so is these are your red flag headaches and we'll talk about secondary headaches towards the end of this article.
But we will firstly look at primary headaches and primary headaches are your the main the most common types of headaches that is encountered by the general population .
Types of Headaches
Primary Headache:
So here I'm drawing this person with a headache and moreover there are many catagorizes of the primary headaches .
Types of Primary Headache:
- A very familiar type is one that affects on the one side of the face ,so unilateral and sort of upper half and these are the young and this is known as the migraine headache.
- Then you have the tension headache which is a sort of feels like a tight tightness around your front of head .
- Then you have the cluster headache which is sort of around your eye orbit area.
- And then you have the sinus headache which is concerned when you have the sinusitis or irritation of your sinus.
- And then you have hormonal headache which is a result of sort of a your hormonal levels changing.
- Migraine:
So let's talk about each of these catagorizes of headaches in a bit more detail beginning with migraine. So migraine is the disorder of the recurrent attack. So it comes and goes the position of migraine is mostly unilateral . 70% the characteristic of the headache it's gradual onset crescendo pattern which is basically increasing intensity sort of and frequency with moderate to severe in intensity.
Symptoms:
So the pain duration of the headache is in between you know a 4 to 72 hours roughly. Associated symptoms which are include is : nausea ,vomiting ,photophobia and also aura. Aura is sort of the feeling of something about to happen which is the intense headache.
Tension Headache:
Then you have the tension headache . Tension headache you can think of it as being more muscular so it's the most ubiquitous headache and is the most common reason why over-the-counter analgesics are actually bought. So this is the most common headache essentially the location of tension headaches are usually bilateral and around the forehead area.
Symptoms:
The characteristic it's pressure or tightness like a band which waxes and wanes . The duration is variable and associated symptoms usually none.
Cluster Headache:
Then you have the cluster headache. Now cluster headaches are pretty painful . Cluster headaches are a group of idiopathic headaches that is associated also with trigeminal neuralgia .
Trigeminal:
Now trigeminal what I mean by that is trigeminal is a nerve trigeminal nerve and it's a very important cranial nerve that does as many things around your face essentially .
Location:
Now the position of the cluster headaches is always in unilateral and it's usually around the eye so it's a one-sided around the eye . The characteristic of a cluster headache the pain begins quickly it's deep continuous pain excruciating and explosive in a in quality.
Symptoms:
The duration it's it's pretty quick in respect to the other headaches we talked about 30 to 3 hours and the associated symptoms are essentially the symptoms of the trigeminal nerve problem as well as some other nerve problems .
In order to understand Symptoms
So just drawing it out here I'm drawing a face . Now we have to quickly just consider what the trigeminal nerve is does in order to consider the symptoms are associated with the cluster headache so the trigeminal nerve it has sense , it's important for sensation around your face.
Branches of trigeminal nerve:
It senses an area around your forehead which is supplied by the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal .Then you have the maxillary branch of the trigeminal v2 which supplies some sort of the nose area, and then you have the a mandibular branch which is a v3 which supplies some sort of the bottom area of your face .
Sensation and symptoms:
Symptoms included are Horner's syndrome which you have a ptosis and meiosis . So ptosis is a drooping of the eyelid and the meiosis is a constriction. So you're not able to dilate your a pupils you can also have the lacrimation and also the nasal discharge .
So essentially what do I'm trying to portray here is that the cluster headache now you can have a some associated symptoms involving in it that the trigeminal nerve and sort of other nerve problems there in your neurology problems hope that made sense.
Sinus and Hormonal Headaches:
Then you have sinus headaches which is associated with sinusitis .Then you have hormonal headaches as well and hormonal headaches essentially it's when the changes of your hormone levels causes the headache.
Example:
So it can be associated with low Estrogen in concentration . For example at the beginning of the menstrual cycle or the withdrawal of the hormone therapy , so all of a sudden you have a estrogen one minute and then you take away the hormonal therapy Estrogen and levels drop you get this headache so those were the five types of headaches primary headaches, migraine, tension, cluster, sinus and hormonal .
Treatment
Now let us look at the drugs used the common or main drugs used to treat each of these headaches beginning with the migraine.
For Migraine:
So for migraines which is recurrent NSAIDs or aspirin plus antiemetics and hydration is important. So antiemetics are drugs that used in a stop vomiting .
For Tension Headache:
For tension headaches simple analgesics . So this is paracetamol and again it's the most common tension headache is the one of the common reasons why people buy over-the-counter paracetamol .
For Cluster Headaches:
For cluster headaches subcutaneous sumatriptan or oxygen can be given and this is to prevent vomiting in general trip tens which includes sumatriptan are actually contraindicated in certain patients , patients with cardio coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease or cerebrovascular disease.
For Sinus Headache:
For sinus headaches the supportive therapy is important and on a g6 anti limit antiemetics and also you can the prescribe but you can give the antibiotics depending on the cause of the sinusitis .
So I hope you'll just understand that was clear the different types of primary headaches as well as just the general management .
Secondary Headaches
Now let's look at secondary headaches which as I mentioned earlier are our serious and dangerous. Secondary headaches are the result of the serious underlying diseases or some other conditions. So we have some warning signs and symptoms for secondary headaches.
Acronyms and for what it Stands for:
And we can do learn this by the acronym snoot SN o o P .
- S stands for condition such as cancer .
- N is for neurological symptoms or abnormal signs always for arm sent which is new age greater than 40 or it's sudden such as when you have a thunderclap sort of feeling which is a subarachnoid hemorrhage essentially the other.
- O is for other associated conditions or features .
- P is for previous headache history with headache progression or change in attack character.
So essentially what the snoop is trying to say is that you know that the headache that the person presents with is very abnormal and it's got all these signs and symptoms which will tell you to hang on for a second this is not normal , there's this is a more serious problem than attention .
Examples:
1. So let's look at some examples . So here I am drawing a person who has a very serious headache, so examples of secondary headaches include intracranial hemorrhage and this can include subdural epidural or sub arachnoid hemorrhage and of course these people they can present with some neurological problems as well as some you know some complaining of thunderclap, essentially the onset was thunderclap.
2. Then you can have another example is giant cell arteritis which also is known as temporal arteritis which is essentially the temporal artery with that is inflamed on the side of your head .
3. The final example of a secondary headache is in internal carotid dissection
Conclusion:
So in summary we looked at headaches which can be a primary or a secondary type. Primary include a migraine, a tension ,a cluster ,a sinus and a hormonal and secondary are your dangerous ones and weak. It's a result of an underlying condition that is the more serious and we can pick this up with the acronym snoop which helps us to sort of identify if it's a more serious or not and yeah .
