Recognize How Your Headache can Tell You that You Have a Serious Health Problem
When people get a headache the usual thing they do is take a pill and wait for it to go away. Rarely, and almost never, people check themselves at the doctor’s office. However, some headaches should not be considered as a mundane thing and should be paid special attention since they might have serious consequences.
There are several types of headaches that cause pain on different parts of your head:
- Tension headache– this type of headache is usually followed by a pain around your head like you have put on a tight headband on your crown part.
- TMJ headache (Temporomandibular joint disorder) – you experience pain on the jaw, more specifically ahead of the ears.
- Neck headache – this type of headache is caused by a problem in your neck joints. The symptoms are usually felt on the back part of your head, more precisely as the name says on your neck part.
- Cluster headache – this is one of the most painful headaches and it is manifested by a severe pain around one eye.
- Sinus headache – this is a type of headache that makes you constantly experience a deep pain in your cheekbones, the bridge of your nose, and the forehead.
- Migraine – this is so far the worst type of headache. You feel like your head is pulsing and when this headache attacks it may last for hours. It is accompanied by vomiting, nausea, and it makes you feel sensitive to sounds and light.
If you find yourself having a headache that you cannot cope with you should definitely take the pain seriously and you check it out with a specialist. It may cause some of these serious health conditions:
Heart Attack
You are suddenly starting to feel intolerable pain on one side of your body, so much that you are unable to move it. You lose the strength in your extremities and you are unable to feel your face, which makes you unable to move your hands, walk, look from either one or both your eyes, and you may not even be able to speak. Moreover, you also find it hard to stay balanced. These headaches come without a notice, they are sudden, and can cause a cardiac arrest. Therefore, once you start feeling these symptoms you should urgently go to the emergency room.
Brain Tumor
Sometimes before you go to sleep you feel an intense headache, you take a pill to fall asleep, and you hope that the headache will be gone by the time you wake up. However, it may happen that it becomes even worse the next morning, and you feel so sick that it makes you vomit. Moreover, any physical activity like taking a walk or doing some exercises does not help at all. Instead, it just makes it more unbearable. When this happens your pain is telling you that something is seriously wrong and it this case, a brain tumor is the most common outcome.
Blood in the Brain
People usually do not take concussions seriously unaware that the even a small hit on the head can have serious consequences. If you hurt your head in an injury and you start experiencing pressure and headaches, seek medical help instantly. That headache may be a sign that the hit induced bleeding in the brain.
Brain Hemorrhage
There are some extremely intolerable headaches that make you feel like your head is exploding. One of them is when you start feeling uneasiness on the back of your head in your neck part. It usually appears while you are resting in a laid down position. You experience an extreme headache when you are exposed to light, you feel confused, and it hurts so bad that it makes you start vomiting. This is usually a case of ruptured aneurism which causes brain hemorrhage, or bleeding in your brain. Therefore, seek medical help before to stop it before it is too late.
Headache caused by an Injury, Stroke or Aneurism
Whenever you start feeling excruciating, sudden, and unbearable pain in your head, which appears in a very short period of time it may be a consequence of some damage or fracture on your head due to an injury, an aneurism, or even after you have suffered a stroke.
Symptoms that may even Lead to Seizures
Some people often have headaches which are not that serious and pass after a short time. However, whenever you feel something out of the ordinary that prevents you from working and doing any kind of activity during the day, you should really pay attention to it. For instance, if your pain in the head worsens, you get headaches more frequently and not even in the usual part of your head, it may be a sign of something more than just an ordinary headache.
After you pass 50 years of age you should take the symptoms seriously. Sometimes these unusual headaches may include pain after doing some physical activity like fitness, running, or sex. You may also start forgetting things, lose balance frequently, lose sensitivity in your arms and legs, start losing your eyesight, and finding it hard and even impossible to speak.
Moreover, these headaches are accompanied by sickness, high body temperature, vomiting, and even a feeling of losing your breath. Worst of all they may cause seizures. Therefore, even if you feel one of these symptoms it is time you schedule an appointment at the doctor’s office.