Misdiagnosed with tension headache?

You might be taking the wrong medication, if you are trying to treat the wrong kind of headache.  We’ve written here before that sinus headaches are often confused with migraine, but the same is true of tension headache.  This past July, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Dr Robert Kaniecki reported on a study that showed just that.

423 patients from Canada and the USA were enrolled in the study.  Some believed that they had tension or stress headache, while the rest had been diagnosed with tension or stress headache.  When their symptoms were studied, guess what?  A whopping 84% actually were suffering from migraine, according the the International Headache Society criteria!  An additional 4% were diagnose as probably suffering from migraine.  This report was in the Ob.Gyn. News.  That’s likely 88% that were misdiagnosed!

Many patients are limping along with painkillers, with no understanding that there are special, targeted drugs and treatments just for migraine.  But if you don’t know you have it, how can you treat it?

To do a quick check to see if your headaches are really just a symptom of migraine, check out this article on migraine diagnosis.