There can be very few people who have not experienced a headache and yet, despite the fact that they are so common, their cause remains something of a mystery. Also, although we often simply talk about a headache it is surprising how few people know that there are in fact several different types of headache.



Migraines for example affect about 10% of the US population (roughly 28 million individuals) and attack three times as many women as men. Yet, despite the fact that such a large section of the population regularly suffers from migraines, we still do not know what causes them. There are of course several theories, the latest of which is that they are caused by the interaction of brain chemicals like serotonin and the nerve cells of the brain, but we really do not know for sure that this is the cause.

Cluster headaches, which are much rarer but also much more intense than migraine headaches, affect only about one person in every three hundred and tend to attack men rather than women. Once again however we have only a tentative idea about what causes the stabbing pain which is often felt behind one eye in these particularly painful headaches. Some people suspect that a defect in the hypothalamus might be the cause but, as yet, there is no firm evidence to support this theory.

The commonest form of headache is what we normally refer to as ordinary or tension-type headaches and once more these are only partly understood. In this case the list of possible causes is extremely long and includes everything from what we eat to how stressed we are. Trying to pinpoint a precise cause has however so far proved too difficult and just what produces the ordinary everyday headache remains a mystery.

Perhaps the only saving grace is that there is a large number of medications available to cope with the different types of headache and most of these are both safe and effective for the majority of sufferers.

Migraines have long proved difficult to treat and the original ergot drugs used to treat them had varying degrees of success. These were then largely replaced by triptans which proved to be more effective but unfortunately carried some drawbacks. Nowadays however the second generation of triptan drugs are proving safe, have fewer side effects and work well for most sufferers.

We have also seen an increase in the use of preventive medications for migraines such as beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, anti-depressants, anti-seizure medications and a variety of other drugs which are commonly used to treat other well known conditions. For some people these will indeed stop headaches from occurring at all, while in other people they act to reduce the frequency of headaches.

For ordinary headaches traditional over-the-counter remedies such as aspirin or paracetamol (which have been around for more than 100 years) and newer drugs such as ibuprofen provide safe and effective relief in most cases. For people who suffer from regular headaches though care does need to be taken as even the humble aspirin can have side effects if taken too frequently and, for example, lead to such problems as gastrointestinal bleeding.

Even though there is still so much that we do not understand about headaches the fact that we are able to treat them effectively is a comfort to the many sufferers and especially to the large number of people who suffer from often very debilitating migraines. Surprisingly enough though only about half of all migraine sufferers ever seek medical advice and so there are millions of people today needlessly suffering in silence.

If you are bothered by headaches and simple over-the-counter medications such as aspirin or paracetamol do not do the trick then, rather than sit and suffer in silence, call in and see your physician who will almost certainly be able to help to relive your headaches.