Diagnosing A Headache Is Not Quite As Simple As You Think

You would think that diagnosing a headache would be one of the simplest things in the world since nearly every adult suffers from them and when you develop one you surely know about it. However, in spite of the noticeable pain, diagnosing a headache can be a little bit trickier than you might suppose.

Surprisingly there are no general tests for use in diagnosing headaches and if you think you have a headache and are feeling pain then all you can do is tell your physician exactly how you feel and he has to come up with a diagnosis on the basis of what you say. However, one major problem is that when it comes to reporting symptoms descriptions can vary markedly.

Some individuals simply are not as articulate as others when it comes to talking about what they feel and our sometimes limited vocabulary does not always help very much. Saying that you feel a 'stabbing pain' might seem to be a very good description to you but it may not necessarily help your physician very much.

As if all of this was not bad enough diagnosing a headache is made harder by the fact that headaches come in various different types.

Simple tension headaches which are produced by inflamed neck or facial muscles and dilated head blood vessels amongst other things do not often get diagnosed by physicians because most people merely treat them themselves with analgesics or simply wait until they go by themselves.

Migraines, on the other hand, are more intense and are more likely to lead to a visit to the physician although even with migraines roughly half of sufferers do not ask for professional help.

Physicians are able to use various factors in order to diagnose a particular form of headache and advise an appropriate treatment and, despite the fact that the pain felt is subjective, the form of pain is indicative of the type of headache. Migraines, for instance, generally produce severe throbbing or pulsating sensations whereas in ordinary tension headaches pain is typically more diffuse and constant.

Migraines are also usually accompanied by nausea as well as by a sensitivity to light and sound, cold extremities and several other signs which sufferers recognize. And, because these symptoms tend to be more or less identical from one person to another, physicians have an objective group of symptoms on which they are able to form a proper diagnosis.

Cluster headaches are characterized by a strong pain behind an eye or temple which lasts for typically half an hour to an hour and then re-occur the next day at around the same time. Cluster headaches can go on for several weeks and, once more as they are fairly regular, physicians have something to go on.

In those instances where headaches are the effect of some serious underlying condition like a brain tumor, physicians are able to identify this without too much difficulty. For instance, MRI or CT scans can reveal well known brain patterns which can connect the headache to the underlying physical problem.

A headache which tends to worsens over time provides physicians with a clue, as do quickly shifting patterns of pain, and this may for instance point to an aneurysm (a weakening of a blood vessel) as the underlying cause.

Diagnosing headaches is complicated as a result of many different types of headache and the variety of symptoms. But the secret is to gather as much information as is possible both from the sufferer and clinical testing.

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