When I see the word ‘headache’, my brain gets a little tight.
The situation described by this term is one that everyone (including Sun Wukong) knows well, and most of the masses have been sick for a long time and have basically come up with a set of “treatment plans” for headaches that seem to be lacking.
But! As a disciplined and educated medical practitioner, I must provide you with a deep and multi-faceted look at the “little things” of headaches.
Are all headaches minor illnesses?
Headaches can be big or small.
In less than a quarter of a column, I found more than 300 names of diseases, including more than 90 kinds of headaches caused by bad brains, more than 180 kinds of diseases in other places with brains, and then there are more than 30 kinds of discomfort that make people feel like they have headaches.
More than one! “Headache” is so arbitrary.
Don’t worry, in fact, many of these diseases are “indiscriminate”.
Most headaches are minor problems
Stress and emotions
Hot and cold stimuli
Hysteria (a condition in which you think you have a headache even though there is no substantial pathology)
Cold or rhinitis
Endocrine disorders
These should be very familiar causes.
Most of the “headaches” we see are basically “minor problems” of this kind, which are not to be feared. As long as we pay attention to rest, keep warm, exercise in moderation, find appropriate ways to relieve our stress, and actively deal with the primary condition, I believe the headache will soon pass.
The “big things” that can cause a headache
It is rare to have a headache, but when it does, it must be taken seriously.
There is brain in the brain shell (skull), there is water (cerebrospinal fluid), there are blood vessels, and outside the brain is the meninges, and any problem with any of these things can cause a headache.
In principle, anything that can cause a change in pressure inside the cerebral shell (inside the skull), whether elevated or decreased, will cause a headache; having blood or pus irritate the meninges will also cause a headache.
On top of these principles, let me name a few.
Trauma to the head
Migraine headaches
intracranial infections
Cerebrovascular lesions
Cerebral hemorrhage
Hydrocephalus
Tumor
Low cranial pressure
In addition, some epilepsy, hypertension, anemia or certain poisoning (such as organophosphorus pesticide poisoning) may also show symptoms of “headache”, so it is important to identify the cause and deal with it accordingly.
A headache is not necessarily a “headache”
When you have a headache, do you feel it carefully, does it hurt anywhere else in your head?
Some headaches are not necessarily the real “brain” pain, but the pain in other parts of the head may have “tricked” us.
Eye pain: glaucoma or other eye diseases.
Ear pain: otitis media and other ear diseases.
face pain or toothache: trigeminal neuralgia or other maxillofacial disorders.
Pain in the back of the head: occipital neuralgia.
These “accessories” of pain sometimes make people feel “headache”, but in fact, there is a difference when you distinguish carefully.
It is like the difference between “skin pain or flesh pain”. Sometimes the subjective feeling is headache, but in fact it is pain in the neighboring area, which you cannot distinguish.
What should I do for a headache?
It’s not that troublesome, just take some painkillers for a headache.
This view is actually very wrong.
The commercially available painkillers or “headache powder” basically belong to a thing called “non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs”, which is a very magical drug, but the damage to the gastric mucosa is great, how many gastritis, gastric ulcers, gastric perforation is the glorious birth of patients who took this drug.
The treatment of minor problems has been more or less talked about earlier. If the headache is not severe and there are no accompanying symptoms, it is possible to rest and rest at home and observe for some time.
Strategic contempt, tactical attention
If the pain has reached the point of needing painkillers, is it not enough to get our attention and go to the hospital to rule it out?
Of course, the tests performed in the hospital should be targeted by the doctor according to the patient’s specific situation, rather than going for a “random checkup”.
For people with diseases such as hypertension and heart disease, a blood pressure may be taken first because perhaps the blood pressure is fluctuating and causing the headache.
For headaches that have no obvious cause, the first choice would be a cranial CT, which can cover a wide range of diseases, including hemorrhage, infarction, tumor, hydrocephalus, etc. The CT can look at almost everything. For some diseases, an enhanced CT can be used.
For patients suspected of having epilepsy, an EEG can be done to diagnose or rule out.
For intracranial tumors, MRI may also be required.
For cerebrovascular malformations, DSA, CTA, MRA, etc. may be performed depending on the case.
Not all of the tests listed above are necessary, and not all of them can be done to find out the cause of the “headache”.
If there is anything to take care of in life when a headache occurs, it is to get more rest. Generally speaking, those headaches that don’t have “backstage support” are hard to last more than a week.
However, if the headache persists for a long time without relief, the pain level is unbearable, the pain level increases rapidly, or there are other unfathomable conditions, such as numbness in the hands and feet, unsteadiness, difficulty in speaking, or nausea and vomiting and a series of other accompanying symptoms, then don’t spend time and go to the hospital.