Headache is the commonest neurological disorder in the community with variable intensity, ranging from a trivial nuisance to a severe, disabling, acute or chronic disorder, and may impose a substantial burden on sufferers and on society. It is one of the commonest reasons for visiting the neurology clinics worldwide, exerting significant burden on its sufferers and impairing daily function especially when accompanied by other symptoms, hence adversely affecting quality of life.
Headaches can occur as a result of many conditions whether serious or not. There are a number of different classification systems for headaches.
Headaches are broadly classified as "primary" or "secondary". Primary headaches are benign, recurrent headaches not caused by underlying disease or structural problems. While primary headaches may cause significant daily pain and disability, they are not dangerous. Secondary headaches are caused by an underlying disease, like an infection, head injury, vascular disorders, brain bleed or tumors. Secondary headaches can be harmless or dangerous.
90% of all headaches are primary headaches. Primary headaches usually first start when people are between 20 and 40 years old . The most common types of primary headaches are migraines and tension-type headaches. Other very rare types of primary headaches include:
Headaches may be caused by problems elsewhere in the head or neck. Some of these are not harmful, such as cervicogenic headache (pain arising from the neck muscles). Medication overuse headache may occur in those using excessive painkillers for headaches, paradoxically causing worsening headaches.
More serious causes of secondary headaches include:
Headache is a symptom of several diseases of reproduction system such as orchitis, mumps and amenorrhea.
Orchitis and mumps
Orchitis and mumps are infectious diseases. In response to every infection the body creates molecular inflammatory mediators which can influnce blood vessel spasm or stimulate nociceptors (a type of sensory receptor at the end of a neuron that responds to damaging or potentially damaging stimuli by sending signals of pain to the spinal cord and brain). Once stimulated, a nociceptor sends a message up the length of the nerve fiber to the nerve cells in the brain, signaling that a part of the body hurts.
Amenorrhea
Amenorrhea (the absence of menstrual bleeding) can be caused by tumor in hypothalamus or pitutary gland due to disruption of hormonal activity. Very often the first signs of tumor are three main symptoms- amenorrhea, headache (caused by expansive proccess in head which leads to high pressure in head) and visual fields defect.
A condition when immune system mistakenly attacks some of the standard proteins in blood.
The absence of a menstrual period in women of reproductive age.
An inflammation of the testes, involving swelling and heavy pains.
Mumps was a common childhood viral disease caused by the mumps virus. Mumps frequently causes orchitis and impairs male fertility.