Causes of Chronic Headaches
A chronic headache includes recurring headaches or Chronic Daily Headache (CDH). The most common causes are migraines, tension headaches, or cluster headaches.
Recurring Headache Conditions: Causes of chronic recurring headaches include:
- Migraine (including various subtypes of episodic migraines)
- Tension headaches
- Cluster headaches
- Muscle contraction headaches
- Neck muscle headaches
- Vascular headaches
- Diabetic headaches (episodic headaches related to fluctuating blood glucose levels)
Daily Activity Headaches: There may be some trigger in your daily activities that makes headache more likely, such as in your occupation. Consider possible causes such as:
- Eyestrain headache
- Postural headache
- Neck muscle headache
Recurring Triggered Headaches: Examples of headaches that may recur, but only in reaction to known particular stimuli include:
- Sexual headache
- Substance-related headaches (e.g. hangover, red wine headache, caffeine withdrawal headache, drug rebound headaches, and many others)
Chronic Head Pain Conditions: Disorders affecting parts of the head or its blood vessels may cause “neuralgia” or other “head pain”, which is usually somewhat different to the feeling of a headache in the brain. Nevertheless, these head pain conditions can be chronic, such as:
- Temporal Arteritis
- Trigeminal neuralgia
- Occipital neuralgia
- Sinusitis (chronic)
Other Causes: These are not the only possible causes of chronic headache. There are many other causes of headaches, in general, and in theory, almost any of these causes could cause a headache that recurs or is episodic. Read more about: Headaches.
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Note: This site is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. See your doctor or other qualified medical professional for all your medical needs.