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An in-depth report on the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cluster headaches.
Most people are familiar with headaches, the all too common affliction marked by throbbing, piercing, or vise-like pain around much or a part of the head. There are many different kinds of headaches, and they range from being an infrequent annoyance to a persistent, severe, and disabling medical condition.
The brain itself is insensitive to pain, so that is not what hurts when a headache arises. Rather, the pain occurs in the following locations:
Doctors categorize headaches as either primary or secondary, which helps to distinguish the many different kinds of headaches and to determine appropriate treatments for each.
A headache is considered primary when a disease or other medical condition does not cause it. Most primary headaches fall into three main types: tension-type, migraine, and cluster headaches.
Secondary headaches are caused by other medical conditions, such as sinus infections, neck injuries, and strokes. About 2% of headaches are secondary to abnormalities or infections in the nasal or sinus passages, and they are commonly referred to as sinus headaches.
The International Headache Society has developed a classification system that includes a category called chronic daily headaches. They may originate as tension headaches, migraines, or a combination of these or other headache types. Chronic daily headaches affect 4 - 5% of the population.
Chronic daily headaches are defined as any benign headache that occurs at least 15 days a month and is not associated with a serious neurologic abnormality. Most people with these headaches have them daily or almost daily and they can be quite debilitating.
Chronic daily headaches are, in turn, subdivided into two categories:
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