Head
Migraine
A migraine can be disabling — with symptoms so severe, all you can think about is finding a dark, quiet place to lie down. Up to 17 percent of women and 6 percent of men have experienced a migraine.
In some cases, these painful headaches are preceded or accompanied by a sensory warning sign (aura), such as flashes of light, blind spots or tingling in your arm or leg. A migraine is also often accompanied by other signs and symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. Migraine pain can be excruciating and may incapacitate you for hours or even days.
Fortunately, management of migraine pain has improved dramatically in the last decade. If you've seen a doctor in the past and had no success, it's time to make another appointment. Although there's still no cure, medications can help reduce the frequency of migraine and stop the pain once it has started. The right medicines combined with self-help remedies and changes in lifestyle may make a tremendous difference for you.
Tension headache
A tension headache is the most common headache, and yet it's not well understood. A tension headache generally produces a diffuse, usually mild to moderate pain over your head. Many people liken the feeling to having a tight band around their head. A tension headache may also cause pain in the back of your neck at the base of your skull.
Although headache pain sometimes can be severe, in most cases it's not the result of an underlying disease. The vast majority of headaches are so-called primary headaches. Besides tension headaches, these include migraines and cluster headaches.
In many cases, there's no clear cause for a tension headache. Fortunately, effective treatments for tension headaches are available. Managing a tension headache is often a balance between fostering healthy habits, finding effective nondrug treatments and using medications appropriately. In addition, a number of preventive, self-care and alternative treatments may help you deal with headache pain.
Cluster headache
A cluster headache is one of the most painful types of headache. It's also distinctive in ways other than the severity of the pain. A striking feature of cluster headache is that the attacks occur in cyclical patterns, or clusters — which gives the condition its name.
Bouts of frequent attacks, in what's known as cluster periods, may last from weeks to months, followed by remission periods when the headache attacks stop completely. The pattern varies from one person to another, but most people have one cluster period a year. During remission, no headaches occur for months, and sometimes even years.
Fortunately, cluster headache is rare. The condition is more common in men. Cluster headache can affect people at any age but is most common between ages 20 and 40.
Although cluster headache attacks are extremely painful, they're not life-threatening. Treatments can help make the attacks shorter and less severe. In addition, preventive medications can help reduce the number of headaches.
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