When Cough Head Pain
Cough headaches are a type of head pain triggered by coughing and other types of straining. This may include sneezing, blowing your nose, laughing, crying, singing, bending over or having a bowel movement. Cough headaches are fairly uncommon. There are two types: primary cough headaches and secondary cough headaches.
- Primary cough headaches are usually harmless, are caused only by coughing and get better quickly without treatment.
- A primary cough headache is diagnosed only when a provider has ruled out possible causes other than coughing.
- A secondary cough headache may be triggered by a cough, but it is caused by problems with the brain or structures near the brain and spine.
Secondary cough headaches can be more serious and may require treatment with surgery. Anyone who has a cough headache for the first time should see their health care provider. The provider can determine whether a cough or something else caused the pain.
Begin suddenly with and just after coughing or other types of straining Typically last a few seconds to a few minutes — some can last up to two hours Cause sharp, stabbing, splitting or “bursting” pain Usually affect both sides of your head and may be worse in the back of your head May be followed by a dull, aching pain for hours
Secondary cough headaches often present with only a cough headache, but you may also experience:
Longer lasting headaches Dizziness Unsteadiness Fainting Ringing in the ears or hearing loss Blurred vision or double vision Tremor
A cough headache only happens right after coughing. Other headache pain is not a cough headache if you already had a headache when you coughed, or if you have a headache condition such as migraine. For example, people with migraine might find that their headaches get worse when they cough.
Contents
Why does coughing cause pressure in head?
Why Do I Experience Pressure in My Head When Coughing? – The pressure you feel in your head when you cough is normally due to the abdominal pressure that occurs when you cough. The pressure exerted by your abdomen radiates to your head to cause a headache. This is why activities that cause you to strain, like bending over, laughing, and sneezing can often lead to a cough headache.
What causes little sharp pains in head?
Ophthalmodynia periodica, also known as ice pick headache, is a sudden onset headache with severe head pain on front or sides of the head, which affects millions of people every year. Ice pick headaches are often confused with other headaches, so it is important to learn the differences.
- Although 40% of ice pick headache patients also suffer from migraines, they are not the same condition.
- What causes sharp pains in your head? Sharp pain in your head is often caused by dysfunction in the cranial nerves.
- Abnormal cerebrospinal fluid levels may also cause sharp headache pain.
- Ice pick headaches are not well understood, but experts think they come from brief irregularities in your brain’s mechanism for processing pain.
Let’s get into the symptoms, secondary causes, and treatments for ice pick headache (ophthalmodynia periodica). Below, we also examine the differences between ice pick headache and other common headaches.
Is sharp pains in head normal?
What Are Ice Pick Headaches? – Ice pick headaches, formally known as primary stabbing headaches, are brief stabs of pain that occur at random in a relatively small area of the head. It is typical for a person to have either a single stab, or a series of stabbing pains that last seconds, occurring at random in a day without any associated autonomic symptoms (tearing, sweating, congestion, eye redness, eye drooping, etc.).
Is paracetamol good for a headache?
Paracetamol is a commonly used medicine that can help treat pain and reduce a high temperature (fever). It’s typically used to relieve mild or moderate pain, such as headaches, toothache or sprains, and reduce fevers caused by illnesses such as colds and flu, Paracetamol is often recommended as one of the first treatments for pain, as it’s safe for most people to take and side effects are rare.
