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* Headaches vs Migraines: What is the Difference?
# Headaches vs Migraines: What is the Difference?
August 14, 2019|
Chronic headaches are a very common and painful condition that impacts millions of Americans every day. Headaches can be absolutely debilitating when they strike and have the potential to affect an individual’s quality of life in a significant way, especially if they are left untreated. While most people tend to assume all chronic headaches are migraines, there are actually some critical differences between the two; to borrow a famous turn of phrase: all migraines are headaches, but not all headaches are migraines.
### What is a Migraine?
A migraine is an extremely painful primary headache disorder, meaning it is not the symptom of another associated condition, but a serious disease in and of itself. While migraine headaches can vary in terms of severity and frequency, they are generally much more intense and long-lasting than a tension headache, and they have a higher rate of disability among sufferers.
The key distinction between a migraine and other primary or secondary headaches is the presenting symptoms. Migraines generally produce a throbbing, pulsating pain that is made worse with even mild physical exertion, while other headaches are generally milder and present with steady pain that doesn’t change markedly with activity levels. Migraines also can be accompanied by light and sound sensitivity, nausea, and vomiting, symptoms which do not generally accompany other primary headaches.
#### Phases of a Migraine Attack
Migraine attacks generally occur in four distinct phases: the premonitory phase, the aura phase, the headache phase, and the postdrome phase. In the premonitory phase, sufferers experience non-painful, but ominous, symptoms like mood changes, food cravings, stiffness in the neck and shoulders, and slight sensitivity to light, sound, and smell. This phase indicates that an attack is imminent. From the premonitory phase, the attack will generally move into the aura phase, where sufferers who experience auras will generally begin to see flashing lights, “floaters,” blurred vision, and expanding blind spots. They can also lose gross and fine motor control and experience mental fog that makes it difficult to communicate clearly and understand others.
The third phase of a migraine is the arrival of the actual headache. This phase is what people generally call a migraine: throbbing, severe pain in one or both sides of the head and sensitivity to light, sound, and smell. The final phase of a migraine attack is the postdrome phase, during which the headache subsides and the sufferer is left exhausted, confused, and unwell. While it doesn’t feel like it, this is the recovery phase of a migraine attack.
#### Types of Migraines
Migraines can generally be divided into some critically important subcategories, which differ from one another by the symptoms and severity with which they impact sufferers. The four main classes of migraine headaches are:
* Migraine without aura – the most common form of migraine headaches, these are throbbing, painful headaches that generally affect one side of the head. They do not generally present symptoms before an attack, but sometimes sufferers of this kind of migraine can experience some of the premonitory phase symptoms described above.
* Migraine with aura – a throbbing, painful headache that is generally presaged or accompanied by intense auditory and/or visual disturbances, which are called auras. Some scientific studies have estimated the likelihood of suffering an aura before or during a migraine attack as high as one in three.
* Abdominal migraine – migraines accompanied by severe nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Sometimes these migraines do not even include a severe headache. They are generally more common in children.
* Hemiplegic migraine – a very rare form of migraines that causes temporary paralysis before or during an attack. Often accompanied by other serious neurological symptoms like vertigo, vision problems, and difficulty speaking or swallowing.
### What is a Headache?
Headaches can generally be divided into two categories: primary headaches, which are an isolated medical condition, and secondary headaches, which are a symptom of another related medical condition. For both types, headaches cause pain in the head, neck, and shoulders and, in extreme cases, can last for hours. However, headaches are generally less severe, less frequent, and shorter in duration than migraines.
#### Types of Headaches
There are over three hundred different known causes, or triggers, for primary and secondary headaches. However, the two most common types of headaches are tension headaches, which present as a band of pressure around the head, and cluster headaches, which generally affect the area right behind the eyes. While migraines are generally more severe than other types of headaches, these conditions can be just as disabling as migraines for some individuals.
### Diagnosis
Unfortunately, there is no single test or procedure that can diagnose the cause of an individual’s headaches. Rather, you will need to work with a trained medical professional over a period of time to help them understand your symptoms, triggers, and history with headaches to arrive at a diagnosis. Pain management providers are one of the top medical professionals you can trust to diagnose and treat migraines, as the condition is one of the central foci of their scope of practice.
### Treatments
While there is no universal cure for chronic headaches or migraines, there are a number of things that can be done to help limit their severity. There is a variety of medications that can be used to quell the symptoms of a migraine, including triptans, opioid and non-opioid pain medication, and over-the-counter medicines like Tylenol or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. There are also procedures that can be performed by a physical therapy qualified healthcare provider, including Botox and steroid injections, nerve blocks, and nerve ablations. Finally, many people find success with complementary lifestyle interventions like diet, exercise, and home remedies, but these generally work best in concert with trusted allopathic interventions.
In any case, if you are suffering from chronic headaches that impact your ability to live life, you should seek medical attention as soon as possible. A trained headache professional can help diagnose your condition and develop a treatment plan aimed at controlling your headaches and getting you back to living your best life!
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* Should I See a Doctor About My Headaches?
# Should I See a Doctor About My Headaches?
    August 14, 2019|
Unfortunately, primary headache disorders like migraines or cluster headaches are often undiagnosed and untreated. If you regularly experience the signs and symptoms described above, you should start to keep a record of your episodes and how you treated them. Once you have a relatively comprehensive record of your experience with headaches, make an appointment with your doctor to discuss your headaches and develop a plan to manage them. There is no reason to suffer through a primary or secondary headache disorder; these conditions can quickly grow to envelop your whole life, jeopardizing your relationships, leisure time, and workplace productivity.
Furthermore, there are certain instances in which you should seek medical treatment immediately for a headache, as the headache could be a sign of a much more serious underlying condition.
These include:
* A sudden, severe headache called a thunderclap that strikes out of nowhere.
* A headache with accompanying feverishness, stiff neck, acute mental fog, seizures, double vision, or numbness, weakness, or tingling in the head, neck, or extremities.
* Headache following any head injury, even a minor one. This is especially true if the headache worsens, instead of improves, over time.
* A headache that gets worse after coughing, exertion, straining, or sudden movement.
* Chronic headaches that start after the age of 50.
Even if you have a long-established history of chronic headaches, you should see your doctor if their pattern, symptomatology, or severity changes suddenly or slowly over time. This could be a sign that your condition is worsening and you need to get out in front of the changes before they get worse.
#### Preparing for Your Appointment
In addition to a headache journal, there are a few things you should do to prepare for your first appointment with a headache specialist. First, assemble a list of all the members of your family who suffer from headaches, including their symptomatology and what works or doesn’t work to alleviate their headache suffering. Second, make sure you can clearly communicate the exact symptoms you experience during an attack: Where is the pain located? How bad is it? Do you have any of the other symptoms described above? Do they happen at a certain time or do they strike at random seemingly out of nowhere? Any known triggers? Finally, gather any applicable medical records from past headache visits and come prepared with any and all of your questions for the specialist.
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* Six Common Headaches Symptoms
# Six Common Headaches Symptoms
There are various different kinds of headache disorders. Although not all headaches are caused by the same disorders or external triggers, there is one thing that they all have in common: they cause pain that can be absolutely debilitating and negatively impact a sufferer’s quality of life on every level.
However, many headaches also cause other awful symptoms, some of which are tied to a specific headache disorder and others that can accompany any kind of headache. We’ve assembled this list of common headache symptoms to help you better understand your headache disorder and its common symptomatology.
#### 1. Head Pain
The first and most obvious symptom of a headache is pain. The pain of a headache can be sharp and stabbing or dull and aching. It can be barely noticeable or so significant that it’s all you can do to focus on anything else. It can be isolated to one area of the head or all over, spreading into the neck, shoulders, arms, and upper back.
Generally speaking, migraine headaches will present as a throbbing, pulsating pain on one side of the head, while cluster headaches are concentrated behind the eyes and tension headaches produce a tightness that spreads across the forehead like a headband of a hat that’s too tight.
#### 2. Nausea and Vomiting
Nausea is an unsettling sensation in the stomach that produces a queasy or uneasy feeling that can be all-consuming. It generally precedes the act of vomiting and is thought to be the body’s way of telling you to not continue or repeat whatever activity you are currently involved in–whether eating questionable berries in the woods or riding an extreme roller coaster.
Vomiting is the body’s way of forcibly expelling, either voluntarily or involuntarily, the contents of the stomach through the mouth. In headache disorders, nausea and vomiting are very common with migraines but less common in other primary and secondary headache disorders. The uneasy feeling of nausea is one of the calling cards of a migraine attack.
#### 3. Sensory Sensitivity
Another hallmark symptom of headache disorders is a heightened sensitivity to light, sound, and smells. During a headache, things that would never bother you can be absolutely unbearable–think the sun shining into your room through a window, the sound of children playing, or the smell of your favorite pungent dish. This increased sensitivity can also play into the above-mentioned nausea and vomiting, as the sensory overload produced by this heightened state of sensitivity can cause or exacerbate this distress. Interestingly, one of the most common triggers for headache attacks is also specific sights, sounds, and smells, so these sensory inputs can both start and worsen an attack.
#### 4. Exhaustion
The overwhelming pain and discomfort caused by a significant headache can lead to exhaustion during and after the episode. Fighting through a headache, even with the assistance of curative therapies like medication or relaxation, is a physically, mentally, and emotionally taxing experience. This takes a toll on the body as a whole and leads to fatigue and exhaustion that can take hours or days to recover from.
#### 5. Dizziness
Dizziness is a common but somewhat vague symptom of headache disorders. It is often described by some people like the feeling of being off-balance or lightheaded, while others describe it as the sensation that their surroundings are spinning out of control. This feeling most often accompanies migraines and cluster headaches but can be present with tension headaches as well.
#### 6. Neurological Symptoms
Even though headaches do not originate within the brain, they can produce a variety of accompanying neurological symptoms. These can include things like blurred vision; numbness or tingling in the face, neck, arms, and hands; sensations of extreme temperature; visual disturbances called auras; and, in extreme cases, temporary paralysis. If you experience neurological symptoms with your headaches, you should seek medical attention immediately as these are serious complications that should be managed by a medical professional.
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