Is it really an "ordinary headache?" Five Signs that mean you MUST see your doctor.

By Dr. Adepeju O. Adeniran

In the years of clinical practice, one of the most common complaints regularly encountered in the hospital is the Headache.

Almost every visit to the doctor starts with "Doctor, I have this headache and......." some add other symptoms that bother them.

This is not very surprising because the headache is one of the most documented symptoms in patient complaint, up to one in twenty females have a headache everyday or every other day, figures are higher in males.

But recently, the trends in patient complaint and care show that many people no longer complain about headaches anymore, except when relating them to other symptoms.

For instance, people say "Doctor, I have a headache AND cough"..."I have a headache AND catarrh" "Headache AND body pains...." etc.

This trend seems to mean that most people no longer see the headache as a symptom that is serious enough to report to the doctor.

Sure, most headaches are indeed what is called the "tension headache". What this means is that, tight muscles in your neck, shoulders, head are causing your head to hurt.

Bad eyesight, which will cause a person to squint and over-use their eye-muscles, will also contribute to a tension headache.

But apart from a Tension headache, which is rather harmless, are there other headaches that are more dangerous? Those that could potentially kill you?

The answer is yes. Now, you need to know what the signs of these types of headaches are, and you need to be able to tell the difference between these ones and the ones that are much less harmless.

So, here goes. Generally you SHOULD go in and see your doctor IF:

1. YOUR HEADACHE PERSISTS FOR MORE THAN 48 HOURS: This is not just a trick by the makers of pain relieving medication; a headache that spans more than 24 hours could be a symptom of a serious medical condition. Which one? well, it could range from the beginning of blood pressure changes to an infective process affecting the brain. The only way to know.....you need to head to a hospital.

2. YOU EXPERIENCE VISUAL CHANGES WITH THE HEADACHE.

If you are suffering from a headache that is accompanied by blurry vision ( objects are unclear), double vision (you seem to see two or more of an object, when in fact, there is only one), or a halo around the object ( the edges of the object are blurred, or see to have light glowing around it, then you need to also see a doctor. A serious medical condition called Temporal Arteritis (discussed below) has as its hallmark, a serious headache that can lead to blindness by affecting the blood supply to the eyes. So, if you experience of the symptoms that have been described above, you need to get to the hospital and insist to be seen as an emergency.