Headache Part 1 Flashcards
How common are headaches and migraines?
- Headache are a symptom
- Half to three quarters of adults aged 18–65 years in the world have hadheadachein the last year and, among those individuals, 30% or more have reportedmigraine
What are the basis of headache generation?
- Some structural
- Some perhaps pharmacological
- Some psychological
What are examples of acute single headache?
- Febrile illness, sinusitis
- First attack of migraine
- Following a head injury
- Subarachnoid haemorrhage
- Meningitis, tumour, drugs, toxins, stroke
- Thunderclap (sudden onset), low pressure
What are examples of dull headaches with increasing severity?
- Usually benign
- Overuse of medication (e.g. codeine)
- Contraceptive pill, hormone replacement therapy
- Neck disease
- Temporal arteritis
- Benign intracranial hypertension
- Cerebral tumour
- Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis
What are examples of dull headache, unchanged over months?
- Chronic tension headache
2. depressive atypical facial pain
What are examples of recurrent headaches?
- Migraine
- Cluster headache
- Episodic tension headache
- Trigeminal or post-herpetic neuralgia
What are examples of triggered headaches?
- Coughing, straining, exertion
- Coitus
- Food and drink
What are onset red flags?
- Thunderclap
- acute
- subacute
What are meningism red flags?
- Photophobia
- phonophobia
- stiff neck
- vomiting
What are some red flag systemic symptoms?
Fever, rash, weight loss
What are some red flag neurological. symptoms or focal signs?
- Visual loss
- confusion
- seizures
- hemiparesis
- double vision
- 3rd nerve palsy (droopy eye and dilated pupil and point wrong way)
- Horner syndrome (pupil smaller on one side)
- papilloedema
What are some other red flags?
- Orthostatic-better lying down
- Strictly unilateral
What type of headache is a subarachnoid haemorrhage?
- Sudden generalised headache ‘blow to the head’.
- Meningism - stiff neck and photophobia
What are subarachnoid haemorrhages caused by?
by a ruptured aneurysm, a few from arteriovenous malformations and some are unexplained
How fatal are subarachnoid haemorrhages?
50% instantly fatal
What can control the leak in a subarachnoid haemorrhage?
- Vasopasm may stop leak, give nimodipine and control BP
- High risk of further bleed
How do you confirm subarachnoid haemorrhage?
- Early neurosurgical assessment will confirm the bleed
and establish the cause. - CT brain, Lumbar puncture (RBC and xanthochromia) and MRA, angiogram.
-If Don’t see blood on scan do lumbar puncture to see if bleeding in brain, blood can obscure blood anatomy
How do you coil an aneurysm?
- Aneurysms used to be clipped or wrapped
- Nowadays filled with platinum coils (catheter through blood vessel in groin and dye and feed platinum coil)
What is an acute intracerebral bleed?
Fatal haemorrhage due to coning
What is coning?
Brain has compliance but to certain point without pressure rises, but when volume goes over limit so for a little increase in volume, pressure grows a lot more steeply, brain starts to seep under areas of weakness (e.g. tentorial herniation) - once squash brain stem - brain stem loose blood supply so death
How can you see raised intracranial pressure?
- Papilloedema
- Optic disc swelling due to raised ICP
- Retina looks like its been pushed (swelling at back of eye)
Which arteries can cause headaches?
Vertebral and carotid arteries
What happens in dissection
-Layers of tissue splits blood collects in split and turbulent flow
What happens in vertebral artery dissection?
Headache in occipital lobe area. and back of neck
What happens in carotid artery dissection?
Pain in phantom of opera (eye and forehead)
Are dissections common in young people?
- 20% of ischaemic strokes <45 years (young stroke)
- Mean age 40, carotid > vertebral
- Sometimes traumatic (seat belt snags on neck) and sometime spontaneous
How do you diagnose a dissection?
MRI/MRA, Doppler (ultrasound), Angiography
How do you treat a dissection and why?
- Aspirin or anticoagulation X 6/12
- Turbulent. flow: sticky blood and then coat and break off and lodge in brain, so prevent stroke
What is Chronic subdural haemorrhage?
Can sheer veins and so form subdural, blood dark on scan, ventricles gone on one side and brain being pushed
Who gets temporal arteritis?
- Over the age of 55.
2. Three times commoner in females.
What are the symptoms of temporal arteritis?
- Constant unilateral headache
- scalp tenderness a
- jaw claudication
- 25% Polymyalgia Rheumatica-proximal muscle tenderness