Know what could be causing headaches
Stress for Success
September 11, 2007

Have you ever wondered if your headaches are just headaches or if they're symptoms of something more serious, even life threatening?

"Primary" headaches such as migraine, tension and cluster are just headaches; they’re not caused by other illnesses. “Secondary” headaches are caused by a physical condition or from medication, such as:
· brain tumors
· subdural hematomas (caused by head trauma)
· epidural hematomas (usually from skull fractures)
· meningitis and other infections
· strokes
· sudden onset of severe high blood pressure
· sudden elevation of pressures inside the eyes
· sinusitis
· hypothyroidism
· Parkinson's disease
· cardiac ischemia
· medications such as estrogen, progestins, calcium channel blockers used to treat high blood pressure, and some serotonin reuptake inhibitors used to treat depression
· overuse of over-the-counter or prescription pain relievers
· withdrawal from caffeine or analgesics

If you have on-going headaches, it’s very important to check with your physician to determine their cause rather than assuming they’re “just” headaches.

As I wrote last week, the most common primary headache is a tension headache, which virtually all adults will have at some point. They’re mostly stress related.

The other primary headaches can be more chronic and are also strongly influenced by stress. The National Headache Foundation reports that 45 million Americans suffer from chronic headaches of one kind or another and spend more than $4 billion annually on over-the-counter relief.

Migraine headaches are the second most common type of primary headache with about 12% of the population experiencing them (approximately 6% of men and 18% of women). Because they’re often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed as tension or sinus headaches many sufferers don't receive effective treatment.

Cluster headaches are a far rarer primary headache, affecting .1 - .4% of the population. Approximately 85% of sufferers are men. These more severe and one-sided headaches occur, as the name implies, in clusters usually from one to eight headaches a day. For 90% of sufferers, the clusters occur intermittently. For the remainder the clusters are chronic meaning there’s no remission for more than one year or remission for fewer than 14 days.

If you experience frequent or chronic headaches and routinely medicate yourself, you can actually worsen your pain by causing “rebound headaches,” according to Ken Holroyd, professor of health psychology at Ohio University (holroyd@ohio.edu.). “When you take pain-relieving medication regularly, your body adjusts to that level of medication. Rebound headaches may then occur between medication doses or if you don’t take the medication. For some this can be a cyclical problem. They take medication for a headache, get more headaches, take more medication, and so on. This cycle needs to be broken before headaches can be effectively treated.” Antidepressants and other tricyclics, also used for headache treatment, don’t cause this rebound effect according to Holroyd.

If you experience frequent headaches, you and your physician need to decide if they’re primary or secondary. Rather than automatically medicate yourself try stress reduction to reduce primary headaches. This leads to fewer headaches as well as enjoying the additional benefits of lower stress.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at http://www.jackieferguson.com/ with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.