Headache

It is rare to find a person who, with some pride, claims that he does not know what a headache is and has never experienced it in his life.

Naturally, if the headache occurs 1-2 times a year and is associated with a tolerable infection (influenza) or exposure to alcohol, this is a condition that passes after taking the painkiller pill. But the more frequent and intense pain that leads a patient to see a doctor, there are a third of the population.

Headache is a particular case of pain in general. Pain is the key word in medicine. After all, it formed such concepts as illness, sick, hospital, etc. Among the pain syndromes, a special place is occupied by the headache, which, while remaining a disease, became at the same time a concept metaphorical. We say "my head hurts" about the problems of children, relatives, work, the material side of life, etc. Here the term "headache" reflects our anxiety, anxiety, concern and is a manifestation of a mental state where the phenomenon of pain is most often absent .

Pain is both our misfortune and our happiness. Especially important is the condition of acutely aroused pain, which is a signal of ill-being, makes one consult a doctor and leads to the search and determination of the pathological causes that caused her appearance. This includes toothache, ear pain in otitis, and pain in the iliac region to the right as a result of a disease of the appendix, etc.

It is hard to imagine what would happen to people if they had no sense of pain. The answer is extremely rare cases when there is an innate absence of perception of pain, and observation, when pain sensitivity disappears under the influence of the pathological process. In such cases, people remain unprotected. The onset of the disease passes for them unnoticeably, there is no sense of injury, burn, etc.

Therefore, paradoxically it sounds - the sense of pain protects us, allows us to quickly detect the danger and begin to eliminate the manifestations of the disease. All this refers to acute pain.

Quite another matter - chronic pain. Quite often they do not have a specific cause for manifestation, or they are separated from the factors that initially conditioned them. In this category of pains that have lost their positive properties, the most important are the mental factors, leading among which are depressive disorders.

Headaches are divided into primary and secondary. The latter include headache caused by any diseases. It can be manifestations of the pathology of the brain and spinal cord (tumors, meningitis, craniocerebral trauma, etc.), damage to the peripheral nervous system (radiculopathy, neuropathy), eye, ear pathology, etc. They often occur, albeit Do not make up most of the headaches.

More often there are two primary forms of headache. One of them has a long history. 3000 more years ago migraine pains were known. Migraine and now takes about a third of the primary headaches. This is a genetic disease, more common in women and worsening in conditions of a chronic emotional factor. The role of endocrine factors is great, which is manifested by the most frequent debut in the pubertal period, frequent disappearance during pregnancy and menopause.

People who suffer from migraine are often active, ambitious seek to fully realize themselves in life. However, there is an assumption that genetically they inherit some energy cellular insufficiency and, being tuned to the successful implementation of life problems, constantly try to overcome the initial inferiority. In this sense, a migraine attack is a payment for the need to maintain a high vitality. Although the source of pain is the superficial vessels of the head (narrowing, and then sharply expanding during the seizure), migraine is a disease associated with increased activity of the brain systems.