TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Common Headache Syndromes A1 - Vollbracht, Sarah E. A1 - Rapoport, Alan M. A2 - Bajwa, Zahid H. A2 - Wootton, R. Joshua A2 - Warfield, Carol A. PY - 2016 T2 - Principles and Practice of Pain Medicine, 3e AB - Headache is one of the most common pain syndromes for which patients consult physicians. Surveys indicate that in any given year, more than 90% of American adults will have some kind of headache or head pain.1 A wide variety of conditions can present with headache. The first step in treating a patient with a primary complaint of headache is to determine whether there is a primary or a secondary headache disorder. Then it is important to make a specific, accurate diagnosis. Secondary headache disorders have an underlying cause, which can usually be determined, such as infection, eye or jaw dysfunction, tumor, aneurysm, dissection or other vascular problems, meningitis, and trauma. Fortunately, very few headaches are caused by serious organic conditions, and most of them are actually primary headache disorders, idiopathic conditions that are benign and tend to recur. The great majority of patients that present to a physician with bad headaches are diagnosed with migraine. The pathophysiology of primary headache disorders is complex and probably involves, among other things, the activation of the trigeminovascular system, meningeal inflammation, and involvement of the cortex, brainstem, and thalamus (see Chapter 29 for a discussion on the pathophysiology of headaches). Chapter 28 presents the historical features in primary headache syndromes and describes the diagnostic criteria for the three most common primary headache disorders, which are migraine, tension-type headache (TTH), and cluster headache. This chapter discusses the differential diagnosis, diagnostic testing, and management of patients with these common primary headache disorders. SN - PB - McGraw-Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - neurology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1131932680 ER -