• Question: What is a headache and what is the cause of it?

    Asked by maciej to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 18 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Alison Graham

      Alison Graham answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      A headache is a pain somewhere in the head. It is not a pain in the brain. The brain itself cannot experience pain as it doesn’t have any pain receptors.

      Headaches can be caused by lots of different things. The causes can vary from person to person but can include a problem somewhere else in the head, like a tooth or ear infection, tension or stress, or tiredness. The symptoms can vary as well. Some people have pulsating pain whereas other have continuous pain; some feel sick or can’t stand bright lights as well.

      There is a lot of research currently going on into headaches. There are several scientific journals dedicated to this topic.

    • Photo: Artem Evdokimov

      Artem Evdokimov answered on 19 Jun 2012:

      There are several kinds of headaches, including spastic headaches, vascular headaches, and so on.
      Some of the worst headaches are supposed to be caused by spasms of blood vessels on the brain boundary. There’s a nice summary of several headache types, their causes and some of the treatments here:

      http://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/guide/migraines-headaches-basics

      Good luck. I hope you don’t have migraine or cluster headaches- they are the worst…

Comments