Types of Headaches

Read a brief description of each of the major types of headaches – then click on the one that applies to you. If you have concerns about your headache symptoms, be sure to read about worrisome headache symptoms.

Common Headaches

Migraine headaches are often, but not always, severe in comparison to many other types of headaches. They are usually a throbbing pain that occurs on one or both sides of the head and that can be associated with nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light, sound, and/or smells. Mild activity may make the headache worse. About 10% of patients experience an aura, typically a visual disturbance with flashing lights or geometric forms. This aura usually occurs just before or during the head pain itself. There are multiple rarer (non-visual) types of auras.

Tension headaches Tension Headaches are extremely common headaches that most people (80-90%) have experienced. They are usually dull constant headaches, experienced like a band around the head, without other associated features. Neck and shoulder muscle pain and tension may also be associated.

Cluster Headaches are severe headaches that occur more commonly in men. They typically involve severe, stabbing pain inside or behind one eye. The pain may last about an hour and can occur a few times per day, sometimes awakening a person from sleep. Other associated features can include tearing of the eye (on the same side as the pain) and nasal congestion on that side. Cluster headaches may be absent for a year or two and then occur daily or multiple times a day for a few weeks. It is for this tendency to ‘cluster’ that the headache was named.

Sinus Headaches are usually meant to refer to headaches that are associated with sinus disease. For example, patients who are suffering from a bacterial sinus infection may experience sinus fullness, pain, fever, and discolored drainage from the nose. At the same time they may experience headaches trigger by this process. Other patients suffer from recurrent allergic rhinitis (stuffy nose with clear drainage in response to environmental allergens such as pollen) and these people may also have associated headaches. Diagnosis is complicated, though, because many patients experience migraine symptoms in which the migraine itself causes facial or sinus pain and even sinus drainage. Indeed, the majority of people who describe themselves as suffering from sinus headaches are in fact suffering from migraine headaches which have associated sinus symptoms. Click on Sinus Headaches to learn more about distinguishing these options from each other.

Uncommon Headaches

Chronic Daily Headaches (or Daily Headaches), despite the name, need not be daily headaches but includes people who have headaches more than 50% or their days (typically greater than 15 days in a month) and often every day. Although classified as one of the types of headaches, it can in fact be migraine, tension-type, or other. If this describes you, then click on the link to learn more about your diagnosis.

Basilar Artery Migraine is an uncommon type of migraine in which a patient may experience symptoms referable to the deepest parts of the brain (the brainstem). This can included weakness alternating on both sides of the body, dizziness, vision loss, lightheadedness, or loss of consciousness. These symptoms typically precede the development of a headache that is predominantly in the back of the head and that may have migraine features such as nausea, sensitivity to light, sound, or smells, and worsening of head pain with activity.

Ophthalmoplegic Migraine has been traditionally classified as a rare migraine in which migraine symptoms are associated with double-vision. Typically the migraine attack occurs first, and is followed by double vision and often pain around one eye that can last days to weeks. Although it has traditionally been classified as a migraine variant, it may in fact be due to damage to the nerves that control eye movements (a cranial neuropathy).

Hemiplegic Migraine is another of the rarer types of headaches. Symptoms include an aura of weakness or temporary paralysis occurring on one side of the body prior to the onset of typical migraine features (throbbing head pain, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, sound, smells, and worsening with activity). Numbness on one side of the body, speech disturbances, or loss of consciousness may also occur. The headaches themselves need not be intense, making diagnosis more difficult.

Abdominal Migraine is one of the rarer types of headaches that is almost exclusively diagnosed in children. Symptoms are pain in the stomach that can last for a few hours to a few days, associated with nausea, vomiting, and looking pale. Later in life patients may have more typical migraine symptoms.

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