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Headache

What Are the Different Types of Headaches?

Summary & Participants

Anyone who suffers from headaches knows they can put a damper on everyday life. But not all headaches are alike. Learn what type of headache you have.

Medically Reviewed On: June 02, 2008

Webcast Transcript

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: The usual initial treatment for cluster headache is prednisone, and usually people would also be started on a calcium channel blocker. The two most important acute medications are injectable sumatriptan and high-flow oxygen.

ANNOUNCER: The headache that gets the most press is the dreaded migraine, which affects about 12 percent of Americans each year. Migraines tend to be one-sided with throbbing pain that can range from mild to excruciating.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: Migraine is characterized usually by at least one or two of nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, sensitivity to sound or aura, those visual displays that usually precede but may accompany headache.

ANNOUNCER: What sets off a migraine? It may be diet, changing weather or for women, certain times of the month.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: Hormonal factors are important triggers, so many women find that they get headaches the day before menstrual flow begins or the day that flow actually begins. And that effect, we believe, is an effect of estrogen withdrawal.

ANNOUNCER: There are a range of medications that can ward off attacks. And when it hits, there are some new approaches.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: The sea change of the last ten years has been the development of a class of compounds called triptans. And triptans are migraine-specific drugs, meaning that they are drugs that were designed to relieve migraine attacks.

ANNOUNCER: And while migraines or cluster headache are disabling conditions, so too are run-of-the-mill tension headaches which can still ruin your day.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: Tension-type headaches typically will begin at the end of a stressful day, three or four or five in the afternoon, and they typically last from one hour to six hours, though they may last even longer.

Tension headache pain tends to be on both sides of the head. Tension-type headache pain tends to be mild or moderate. Tension-type headache pain is a steady ache or a pressure or some people describe a hatband of pain.

ANNOUNCER: Usually the remedy for a tension headache is as close as your nearest pharmacy.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: Most people with tension-type headache do fine treating with over-the-counter medications and there's a broad range of over-the-counter analgesics that have been shown to work for tension-type headache.

ANNOUNCER: And although stress doesn't cause headache, it can make it worse, and for that there are calming activities.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: There are a wide range of stress management techniques that are used, everything from systemic relaxation that you do at home to biofeedback to cognitive-behavioral therapy, where you essentially learn about the ideas that you have that make your life more stressful and how to manage those ideas better.

ANNOUNCER: But when is it more that just a headache?

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: Sometimes headache is symptomatic of a serious underlying disorder. So one red flag is new onset of headache after the age of 55. If you start out having mild headaches and your headaches increase in frequency or severity over time. Headaches associated with a fever or a stiff neck may reflect an infection that requires medical attention.

Weakness, difficulty moving one side of the body, double vision, if you go from having no pain at all to having very severe pain, that may be a first manifestation of stroke, and if that happens, that's a good reason to seek medical care.

ANNOUNCER: Headaches aren't usually a serious health threat, but they can, if untreated, be a threat to our well-being. The message to take away is: There's help for your splitting head.

RICHARD LIPTON, MD: It's important for people to recognize that, if they're suffering from headaches, that they've got an extraordinarily common problem and an extraordinarily treatable problem.

Headache is not a problem that you need to learn to live with. It's a problem that you need to learn to manage and live without.

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