Approximately 1 in every 6 individuals or 45 million people in the United States suffer from chronic headaches. Also known as "cephalgia," headaches cost billions of dollars in treatment expense and lost worker productivity every year. Headache symptoms which persist and worsen call for a visit to your primary care physician to begin the process of diagnosis and treatment.
There are a number of different ways to classify headaches. They can be referred to as either secondary or primary. Secondary headaches occur as a result of some other condition such as a stroke, infection, brain tumor or head injury. Primary headaches, on the other hand, occur when the headache problem is the disorder. These can be further categorized as one of three main types: vascular, muscle tension and cervicogenic.
The most common type of vascular headache is migraine. Migraine headaches are usually characterized by throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head with a combination of nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and/or noise. About 15% of migraine sufferers experience an aura such as vision changes or disruption in taste, smell or touch as a precursor to an attack. While circulatory changes occur during a migraine, the cause is actually thought to be chemically mediated and neurologic in nature. According to nurse practitioner Penny Bernards, a headache specialist at the Neuroscience Group of Northeast Wisconsin, about 40% of migraines affect both sides of the head. Almost three times as many women as men are afflicted by migraines and 60% of the time there is also complaints of neck pain. Being alert to physical or environmental triggers such as certain foods, hormonal patterns and stress will help develop individualized treatment strategies and assist in determining if and what type of medication should be prescribed in your case.
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