The Diagnosis Of A Headache Is An Amazingly Hard Job

Diagnosing a headache should be the easiest thing in the world because nearly every adult suffers from headaches and when you develop one then you definitely know about it. But, despite the obvious pain, diagnosing a headache is a little bit trickier than you may think.Astonishingly there are no general and definitive tests when it comes to diagnosing a headache and if you think you are suffering from a headache and are experiencing pain then all you can really do is tell your physician how you feel and he has to produce a diagnosis on the basis of whatever you say. However, one major problem is that when talking about symptoms descriptions can and do vary wildly.Some individuals are simply not as articulate as others when talking about how they feel and our often limited vocabulary does not help us either. Saying that you are experiencing a 'sharp pain' may seem to be a very good description to you but it may not necessarily help your physician very much.As if all of this was not bad enough diagnosing a headache is made even more difficult because headaches come in various different types.Simple tension headaches which are caused by inflamed facial or neck muscles and dilated head blood vessels amongst other things do not often get diagnosed by a physician as most people merely treat them with painkillers or just wait until they go by themselves.By contrast, migraines are far worse and are more likely to result in a visit to the physician although even here approximately fifty percent of sufferers never seek professional help.Physicians are able to use a variety of factors to diagnose a specific form of headache and advise a suitable treatment and, despite the fact that the pain is subjective, the form of pain is indicative of the type of headache. For example, migraines often produce intense throbbing or pulsating sensations while in ordinary tension headaches the pain is normally more diffuse and regular.Migraines are also frequently accompanied by nausea and vomiting as well as a sensitivity to sound and light, cold extremities and several other signs that sufferers will recognize. And, as these symptoms are roughly identical from one person to the next, physicians have an objective group of symptoms on which they are able to base a proper diagnosis.Cluster headaches are typified by an intense pain behind an eye or temple that occurs for normally half an hour to an hour and then re-occur the following day at roughly the same time. Cluster headaches can last for a number of weeks and, again as they are fairly regular, physicians have something to go o when making their diagnosis.In those instances where a headache is the effect of some serious underlying condition such as a brain tumor, physicians are able to diagnose this without undue difficulty. For example, CT or MRI scans can be used to look for well known brain patterns that can link the headache to the physical problem which underlies it.A headache that tends to worsens over time provides physicians with a clue, as do patterns of pain which shift rapidly, and this could for example indicate an aneurysm (a weakened blood vessel) as the underlying cause.Diagnosing a headache is a complex business because of many different forms of headache and the wide variety of symptoms. Nevertheless the secret is to gather together as much information as possible from both the sufferer and clinical testing.