Worst Headache of Your Life
- Worst Headache of Your Life Overview
- Worst Headache of Your Life Causes
- Worst Headache of Your Life Symptoms
- When to Seek Medical Care
- Exams and Tests
- Worst Headache of Your Life Treatment
- Self-Care at Home
- Medical Treatment
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Worst Headache of Your Life Overview
Headaches are a common reason for a visit to the doctor. Almost everyone gets headaches now and then. Some people have more serious types of headaches requiring specialized medical treatment. On rare occasions, a headache may be a symptom of a life-threatening problem.
Worst Headache of Your Life Causes
There are many types and causes of headaches. Some of them are as follows:
- Tension
- Migraine
- Meningitis, or an infection of the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord
- Tumors
- Temporal or giant cell arteritis, an inflammation or swelling of blood vessels in the head
- Head injury with or without bleeding within the skull
- Exposure to certain toxic substances, such as carbon monoxide (This exposure tends to occur in the winter months because of defective heating systems and may affect an entire family.)
- A burst aneurysm in the brain
Next: Worst Headache of Your Life Symptoms »
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Worst Headache of Your Life
Mild Headache Overview
Headaches are common but usually do not represent a serious illness. Even when headaches do not have a serious cause, they may be quite painful and disrupt your daily activities.
There are many different causes of headache. The pain in different types of headache varies in intensity, location, and duration. Another important feature that helps distinguish among different types of headache is the quality of the pain: whether it is sharp, dull, constant, intermittent, or pounding. Additional symptoms may accompany a headache:
- Dizziness
- Numbness or weakness
- Changes in vision
- Difficulty with balance
- Eye, ear, or facial pain
- Cold symptoms
- Fever
All these factors help determine whether or not a headache needs emergency treatment. Ultimately, the caus...
Read What Your Physician is Reading on eMedicine
Migraine Headache »
Although migraine is a term applied to certain headaches with a vascular quality, overwhelming evidence suggests that migraine is a dominantly inherited disorder characterized by varying degrees of recurrent vascular-quality headache, photophobia, sleep disruption, and depression.
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