Headache Types
Headaches vary in intensity, frequency and duration and can be triggered by a multitude of physical, emotional, and environmental factors. Establishing the correct diagnosis is critical to developing an effective strategy for managing headache. While the IHS identifies 14 types of headache disorders, most headaches can be classified as either primary or secondary.

Primary headaches are not related to another underlying medical condition. They are headache diseases that are thought to be related to abnormalities of neurotransmitters in the brain. More than 90% of all headaches are considered primary and these include tension-type, migraine, and cluster.

Secondary headaches result from other medical conditions, such as meningitis, hemorrhage, and other medical disorders, which can have headache as one of their symptoms. There are over 300 possible secondary causes of headache. The two most common types of secondary headaches are related to head trauma and medication overuse, formerly known as analgesic rebound headache.