Who among us has not suffered the occasional headache?  Perhaps it occurred after an especially difficult evening with the two year old and her four year old brother, who together managed to transform the living room into an apocalayptic chaos. Maybe it was that attempt to write the report your boss demanded or worse yet, to help your son with his ninth grade science assignment.  Let’s not forget the alcohol which would have been just fine had you only stopped after the second drink.

Not all headaches are created equal.  Most are relatively benign except of course for the nuisance factor.  These include: Tension headaches caused by you guessed it-stress! These feel like a band tightening around the forehead and are easily treated with rest, fluids and motrin.  Headaches can be caused by many other things including dehydration, pharyngitis, dental infections, neck pain referred to the head, poor vision as well as even thryoid problems.

More concerning headaches include those caused by temporal arteritis, an inflammation of the artery near the temple which if left untreated can lead to blindness. Tumors usually present with gradual onset, often worse with bending forward (but so do sinus headaches which are much more common), new onset seizures, or in the setting of known cancers which may have spread to the brain.

If you have meningitis or encephalitis the headache is often severe, unrelenting and associated with flu symtoms.  Stiff neck may be present as well.  Sudden onset is concerning as this may result from a leaky brain aneurysm. This headache is usually severe, associated with neck stiffness and may be seen with confusion as well.  Strokes can also cause headaches.

Migraines are a special class of recurrent headaches, often one sided associated with visual changes, nausea vomiting  and aversion to bright light.  Technically these are only diagnosed after at least three similar headaches have occured and may be prevented by dietary changes and certain medications.  Migraines in some cases can cause strokes and at least in female sufferers may raise the risk of having a heart attack. Fabulous writing place to try http://order-essay-online.net/ for intellectual advice.

The bottom line is that the causes of headaches are many and headaches which don’t go away within a few hours, are severe, sudden in onset, recurrent or associated with fever, neck stiffness or confusion need to evaluated right away.

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