Headache differential diagnosis

Headaches are very common in life, and there are many causes of headaches. When a headache occurs, if it is severe, you must go to the hospital for examination in time to identify and diagnose, understand the cause, understand the primary disease, and then conduct regular treatment to avoid greater harm to your health. A comprehensive examination should be conducted based on the speed of the headache, the location of the headache, etc.

1. How quickly headaches occur

1. Acute headache: Acute headache accompanied by fever is caused by various infectious diseases. Young and middle-aged people who suddenly develop severe headaches, accompanied by nausea, vomiting, or with or without unconsciousness and hemiplegia but not fever may have intracranial aneurysm or subarachnoid hemorrhage, while middle-aged and elderly people may have cerebral hemorrhage or subarachnoid hemorrhage.

2. Chronic, progressive headaches are common in intracranial tumors.

2. Location of headache

The headache caused by acute infectious diseases is generalized, diffuse, and rarely radiative (diffuse: means the location cannot be determined, radiative: usually has a clear pain point and expands to the surrounding area). Severe neck pain accompanied by posterior neck stiffness is often seen in subarachnoid hemorrhage, meningitis, acute cervical myositis, etc.

3. When and how long headaches occur

The characteristic of headache is that it lasts for about 2 to 3 hours or 1 to 2 days; chronic persistent headache is a characteristic of brain tumors, high intracranial pressure, and subdural hematoma; head neuralgia such as trigeminal neuralgia lasts for a short time, a few seconds or tens of seconds.

4. Nature and severity of headache

Primary trigeminal neuralgia presents as brief, electric-shock-like pain in the face. The headache is a throbbing headache. The severity of the headache is determined by the location of the lesion and the individual's reactivity, and is not necessarily parallel to the severity of the disease.

5. Factors that induce, aggravate, and relieve headaches

Headaches caused by brain tumors, meningitis, etc. are aggravated by turning the head, lowering the head, or coughing. Cluster headaches (headaches lasting 15 to 180 minutes, severe, unilateral, occurring up to 8 times a day, and accompanied by at least one of the following signs: tearing, red eyes, nasal congestion, facial sweating, drooping eyelids, or miosis) are relieved by the upright position.

We are all very clear about the diagnostic measures for headaches. It seriously affects our lives. We must take more precautions in our lives to avoid headaches. We must discover the disease early, treat it early, and go to a regular hospital for treatment. I hope we pay more attention to our bodies in our lives.