Migraines and Headaches - Women putting her hand on her head in bed grabbing a glass of water

“Headache” is a broad description that involves pain felt inside the head that can range from a mild annoyance to completely debilitating. Headache symptoms can make you feel helpless, or might even leave you wondering about your health. Headaches and migraines are often innocent, but sometimes they need medical attention to help relieve symptoms or to investigate causes.

Types of Headaches

Although they all share the symptom of mild to extreme pain inside your head, there are over 200 different categories of headaches! These different types are classified into Primary and Secondary type headaches.

Secondary type headaches are rare. They are caused by damage to the brain itself – like a lesion, tumor, or an infection, like meningitis – that the brain reacts to through pain. Curing these headaches require treatment of the damage.

The more common Primary type headaches happen without physical damage. Primary headaches – such as migraines, tension headaches, or cluster headaches – can result from a number of issues. These can range from neurological problems to congestion, or even muscle tension. While they can still be quite severe and have people concerned about their health, treating them is more focused on symptom relief than curing a physical problem.

Diagnosing Headaches

headaches and migraines - man sitting at computer hand on foreheadHead pain can be difficult for doctors to accurately diagnose due to their lack of physical symptoms. Your doctor has to rely most on what you can tell them about your headaches. If you have recurring pain, try to pay attention to patterns associated with your head pain. How do your headaches feel? When do you get a headache? What does or doesn’t help your symptoms? Significant patterns are important clues for your doctor to diagnose your pain.

Tests and scans, like a CT scan, x-ray, or MRI, are usually only needed to diagnose Secondary type headaches. It is also normal for doctors to perform these tests on Primary headaches to rule out other options.

Home Headache Care

Minor headaches are an annoyance that can affect anyone’s everyday life, even if they aren’t as debilitating as extreme alternatives. Their symptoms can often be managed at home. If you are experiencing mild headache symptoms, consider:

  • Basic stretches to move and stretch the neck and shoulder muscles can relieve a tension headache
  • Ice packs on the back and neck provide relief from tension or inflammation
  • Over the counter medications, like ibuprofen (Advil and other brand names), naproxen, or acetaminophen (Tylenol and other brand names), can be effective for some short-term, mild headache pain. Contact your doctor if you don’t have any headache relief after multiple days.
  • Some sinus headaches can be relieved with over-the-counter decongestants
    Hydrate
  • Some find relief with soothing scents from essential oils, like peppermint and lavender, or use ginger tea to relieve pain and nausea symptoms

All headaches could have patterns that will help you to avoid them, or predict when you are going to experience one. By knowing your headache triggers you can avoid things that cause them, like caffeine, alcohol, specific noises, or foods. Women can also experience headaches caused by hormone changes during their menstrual cycle.

If you ever have questions about your health, need better treatment, or want to check where your headaches might be coming from, your family doctor and local clinic are a great first step. Enlisting the help of local health professionals is a good way to learn more about your headache symptoms – which often leads to more effective symptom relief and solutions.

Resources:

Migraine Canada: https://migrainecanada.org/
Migraine Canada Migraine Test: https://migrainecanada.org/migraine-test/
Other Migraine Canada Patient resources: https://headachesociety.ca/for-patients/