There are many different types of headaches, one of the most common is the tension headache. This is caused by tension building up in the neck muscles and is, as its name suggests, associated with tension. The tension is normally cause by emotional or stressful events, including having a baby, moving to a new house, financial worries, marriage, divorce, career, separation and bereavement.
Other factors such as over-tiredness, poor diet (especially a deficiency in calcium), and lack of exercise can also contribute to headaches or exacerbate their effects.
A migraine is a vascular form of headache, where the blood flow becomes restricted in the blood vessels, this causes a release in chemicals from nerve fibers, and the chemicals cause inflammation and pain. Migraine can occur at any age but is more common in those between the ages of 15 and 55. There is often a family history of migraines and they are more common in women.
Hangover headaches are self-induced. Excessive alcohol consumption causes the cells to expel water through a process called osmosis. The pain is actually brought on by dehydration. Butalbital headaches are caused by taking too much of a drug which contain butalbital in combination with caffeine or aspirin or acetaminophen. Since people build up a resistance to this drug, they need to take in greater doses in order to get the same effect. This can cause dependence. Withdrawing from the drug can cause headaches called rebound headaches.1 This being said, butalbital can be effective for temporary pain relief.
Sinus headache is caused by inflammation and sometimes infection of the sinuses, but can also be caused by changes in pressure from high altitudes or swimming. Sinus headaches associated with allergies or colds are often worst first thing in the morning and gradually lessen during the day.
Cluster headaches can be extremely painful. This is a series of headaches over a period of several weeks, each one lasting from 15 minutes to 3 hours - but the peak pain usually is at about 5 minutes into the headache.2 Their onset is so rapid they can be mistaken for a brain tumor.
Headaches can occur as a result of depression. These symptomatic headaches should be treated along with the root cause of the problem. Although perpetual headaches can make someone feel down or low, they do not normally bring on depression on their own.
'Ice pick', 'jolts’ or 'jabs' are the names given to headaches which are very short in duration, 5 to 30 seconds however, they can be intensely painful headaches. They can be scary as they can happen with no prior warning.3 They are not considered dangerous and are more likely to happen to migraine and cluster headache suffers. Ice pick headaches usually only affect adults and are very rarely seen in children.
It is important to know different types of headaches in order to diagnose the cause and treatment of headaches.
- 1. Mayo Clinic - Butalbital and Acetaminophen Combination
- 2. eMedicine Help - Cluster Headaches
- 3. Health Central on Ice Pick Headaches
