Morning Headaches Differential Diagnosis

This article will discuss the differential diagnosis of headaches types of headaches and when you should be really concerned about your headache.

Morning headaches differential diagnosis. Some headaches are extremely debilitating and have significant impact on an individual s quality of life. Tension type headache migraine headache chronic daily headache cluster headache the causes and diagnosis of non migraine headaches are discussed here. While rest are secondary headaches. Occasionally individuals will also have forehead sweating and migraine symptoms such as throbbing pain nausea and or vomiting or sensitivity to light and sound.

Cardinal presentations this post is part of a series called cardinal presentations based on rosen s emergency medicine 8th edition. Cause by underlying disease. Headaches can be quite debilitating although most headaches are not caused by life threatening disorders. Most serious causes are meningitis subarachnoid hemorrhage and temporal arteritis.

Migraine is most common in women and has a str. Most common causes are migraines and tension type headaches. Most headaches are caused by one of four syndromes. Those individuals with chronic tension type headache are most likely to be awakened in the early morning hours due to headache.

A pain in the head with the pain being above the eyes or the ears behind the head occipital or in the back of the upper neck a headache like a chest pain or back ache has many causes. 90 of the headaches are primary headcahes. Differential diagnosis for migraine hemicrania continua. Migraine is a complex disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of headache most often unilateral and in some cases associated with visual or sensory symptoms collectively known as an aura that arise most often before the head pain but that may occur during or afterward see the image below.

1 headache affects people of all ages races and socioeconomic status and is more common in women. Primary headache secondary headache. Primary headaches are often chronic and the diagnosis is established early in adulthood. Primary headaches e g tension migraine cluster primary headaches are headache syndromes not due to another cause.

There are also several other questions that can be asked for each differential diagnosis. This is a helpful list to review differential diagnosis for headaches. Headache is an extremely common symptom and collectively headache disorders are among the most common of the nervous system disorders with a prevalence of 48 9 in the general population. Feverweaknesssyncopealtered mental statusseizuredizziness and vertigoheadachesore throatdyspneachest painabdominal painnausea and vomitinggastrointestinal bleedingacute pelvic painback pain types of dizziness distinguishing central vs.

Cause significant and daily pain. Possible causes of headaches questions to ask.