headache analyzer

What causes a vascular headache?

Inflammation of blood vessels in the scalp, face and base of the brain is responsible for vascular headache pain.  The incessant throbbing or "pounding" experienced during a vascular headache is the product of the repeated distension and relaxation of inflamed blood vessel walls accompanying each heartbeat.

Anyone who has had an acute sprain or finger infection knows the throbbing pain, swelling, and heat that occur at the site of the injury.  Blood vessels are central to the healing process through the transportation of inflammatory, pain-causing substances (kinins) and through vasodilation (causing warmth) that we all recognize as inflammation.

Vascular headaches are simply an expression of the inflammatory response and may be the result of very different kinds of triggers.  The major problem in treating vascular headaches is finding their triggers.  Your headaches may feel all the same.  However, each may be triggered differently. 

Consequently, a treatment that works well on one occasion may have little, if any, positive effect on a later headache.

Something that is already inflamed (think of  twisting a sprained thumb several days after initially hurting it) will be highly susceptible to repeated injury.  That is why headaches seem to come in "storm" patterns and sometimes will not lift for days or weeks.