Headaches are among the most common medical complaints worldwide, but when you’re experiencing a headache, you don’t care about statistics — you just want to feel better. Although they can cause similar symptoms, headaches occur for different reasons. That means they often require a different approach to relieve pain and, ideally, reduce their frequency.
As a leading headache specialist in Raleigh, North Carolina, Daljit S. Buttar, MD, offers an array of headache treatment options for patients at Raleigh Spine and Pain Center. In this post, Dr. Buttar and our team review three common types of headaches, providing a brief overview of some treatments that can help relieve your symptoms.
Even though headaches are extremely common, researchers aren’t completely sure what causes them. What they do know is that there are different types of headaches, and the way they occur and the symptoms they cause can vary.
Tension headaches are the most common type of headache, usually causing aches and throbbing pain that affects both sides of your head. As the name implies, tension headaches are associated with chronic or acute stress and the muscle tension stress can cause, specifically tension in the muscles that support your neck, shoulders, and upper back.
Unlike some other types of headaches, tension headaches don’t cause nausea, vision problems, or sensitivity to light, sounds, or smells. Although the pain of a tension headache can be significant, it’s often not as severe as the symptoms associated with migraines or cluster headaches. Instead of sharp pain, tension headaches usually cause dull aching that may be described as persistent “vise-like” throbbing.
Unlike tension headaches, migraines usually (but not always) affect one side of your head, and they’re often associated with side effects like:
Migraines are significantly more common in women than in men.
Migraines often happen in stages. The first stage — prodrome — can occur hours or even days before a migraine, causing telltale symptoms like extreme fatigue, restlessness, or anxiety.
Some people have migraines that primarily cause vision changes without significant pain or other symptoms. These migraines are often referred to as ocular migraines.
While the cause of migraines is unknown, researchers have identified triggers that can cause migraines in some people. These include:
Learning to identify your triggers can play an essential role in managing your headaches.
Cluster headaches happen in groups (clusters) over a period of weeks or even months. Between each group or cluster is a period free from headache symptoms, sometimes referred to as remission.
Like migraines, cluster headaches often occur on one side of your head and they can also cause severe pain — sometimes significant enough to interrupt your sleep. These headaches also tend to happen around the same time each day. In fact, research suggests these headaches may be triggered by problems with your body’s built-in biological clock.
Even though each type of headache can cause different symptoms, those differences can be subtle. The only way to know for sure which type of headache you have is to have it medically evaluated.
Once Dr. Buttar diagnoses your headache, he’ll recommend a treatment plan tailored to the type of headache, the symptoms it’s causing, your lifestyle, and other factors unique to you. In addition to medications aimed at relieving pain and correcting underlying issues, like hormonal fluctuations, he frequently recommends cutting-edge treatments, like:
Many people benefit from a combination of therapies adjusted over time.
Chronic or recurrent headaches can be difficult to manage on your own. In fact, as neurological disorders, headaches really need medical intervention to keep headaches and their symptoms under control.
To learn how we can help you manage your headache symptoms, call 919-867-3176 or book an appointment online with Dr. Buttar and our team at Raleigh Spine and Pain Center today.
