here are different types of headaches that can occur due to different causes and vary in duration and intensity of the pain. Here’s a guide on coping with them, writes Vinita Alvares Fernandes
The pressing feeling on your temples or the unbearable pain taking over one side of your head or the pounding feeling from inside your brain that feels like little oompa loompas jumping on a trampoline trying to hit the inside of your skull. Although it may feel like it, a headache is not actually a pain in your brain.
Most of us aren’t strangers to the occasional headache. Dealing with the throbbing, uncomfortable, disrupting and distracting pain of a headache isn’t a joyride but unfortunately all too common.
Most headaches owe its occurrence to the nerves, blood vessels and muscles that swell up, tighten or are stimulated in a way that causes pressure in a person’s head and neck. These nerves send a rush of pain messages to the brain leading to a headache.
Different types of primary headaches —
- Tension headache- The dull, aching sensation all over your head is known as a tension headache. It doesn’t throb but you do feel some tenderness and pain around your forehead, neck, shoulders and scalp. A tension headache can feel like a tight band around your forehead. Tension headaches are the most common type of headache. It affects all of us at some point and its main trigger is stress. Most people who get tension headaches have episodic headaches that occur one or two times per month on average. Someone’s susceptibility to tension headaches is also attributed to their genes. Some common triggers of tension headaches are stress, alcohol, dental problems, strained eyes, smoking, tiredness or fatigue.
- Cluster headache- Cluster headaches are accompanied by a severe burning and piercing pain. They occur around or behind one eye or on only one side of the face at a time. Common symptoms of cluster headaches include swelling, redness, flushed complexion and sweating on the affected side. After one headache resolves, another will soon follow. A series of cluster headaches can be daily for months at a time, hence the name. Doctors and researchers aren’t entirely sure what causes cluster headaches.
