Knowing the common types of headaches – which one do you have?

Headache is a nervous system disorder that can be of different types. It is one of the most recurrent and constant uneasiness that people can experience. For some, it is tolerable and some fail to bear the excruciating and throbbing pain. Depending on the typesof headaches, the treatment plan must be chosen. Some have easy remedies and medicine to get rid of them, and some last for a lifetime.

Whatever type of headache you might have, it is very crucial that yours has been identified properly. Misdiagnosis may worsen the condition or at least prolong the pain, due to no proper support and supply of medicines. According to the World Health Organization, 47% of the adult population has had a headache at least for once within the previous year. Despite this huge number of sufferers, headache is one of the most under-recognised, underestimated as well as undertreated conditions.

Types of headaches:

A disorder of nervous system, a headache is a very disabling and painful feature. There are different types of headaches depending on the cause of its occurrence. Thus, there are the primary headaches that are caused by direct reasons and there are secondary headaches that are side effects or after effects of some other diseases or medication usage. More than 150 different kinds of headaches have been medically categorised. Amongst these, the most common ones are – tension headaches, sinus, migraines, cluster headaches, mixed headache, acute or chronic headaches etc.

• Tension type headache:

It is a non-progressive and chronic daily headache in which mild to moderate pain is felt. This type of pain caused by tension is mostly short-lived.

• Sinus headache:

Sinus pains are also one of the most common types of headaches and affect the forehead, cheekbones and bridge of nose. Nasal discharges, facial swelling, fever etc. are caused by the inflammation of the sinusitis. Sudden head movement can make the pain severe.

• Migraine headache:

Most people mistake their pain as sinus. However, in a 2004 study, it was seen that 80% of the doctor-diagnosed or self-diagnosed sinus headaches were actually migraines and had no signs of sinusitis. What causes migraine has not been understood, but in this case, serotonin levels in brain drops down and neuropeptides travel through the meninges. This causes this excruciating pain that can last for hours to 3 days at a stretch. Many people experience auras such as blind spots, flashes of light and intolerable sensitivity to light and sound, before the actual attack.

• Cluster headache:

One of the rarest of all types of headaches is cluster headache that occurs in only 1% of the entire population. Some even refer to this type as “suicide headache” due to the unbearable pain that the sufferer considers suicide as a better choice. The pain occurs behind the eye and is constantly throbbing. It can attack up to thrice a day and last for two weeks to three months.