Talk:Tension headache

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In the book It's Note A Tumor, Wiedemeyer says that muscle tension is the cause of 80% of all headaches (migranes 15%). He says these muscle "contraction" headaches are mostly caused by stress, which creates increased extraneous electrical activity in the brain which creeps down the spinal cord to nerves that control muscles in the head and neck causing them to contract which compresses the pain-carrying nerves there, producing the headache. Is this a real explanation or what people call "quackery"? A pointed explanation in layman's terms is very appropriate, and in the spirit of wikipedia, I think. He also has a neat explanation for migraines or "vascular" headaches- instead of muscle contractions squeezing the nerves inside the muscles, it's artery dilation stretching those nerves encircling the arteries. Causes of dilation include spasms of artery muscle, and less often, inflammation. Not much explanaiton on what causes the spasms but they often first invlve contraction, affecting vision, then dilation stretching the nerve, causing the headache.

[edit] Renaming

Does the International Headache Society have enough traction to get a substantial portion of the medical community calling these 'tension-type' headaches? If not, they probably don't deserve mention in the first sentence of the article. -Toptomcat 22:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by traction. They're the largest professional association devoted to the study and treatment of headache disorders. Their International Headache Society's International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd Edition, is pretty universally accepted as the "gold standard" for classification and diagnosis. It's through their work and this document that what used to be "classic migraine" is now known as migraine with aura and "common migraine" is now known as migraine without aura. I'm not really sure what you meant, but does this answer the question?

--TeriRobert 08:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Having Headaches

Everyone will have at least one tension headache in their lifetime. — This statement isn't necessarily true Carnivorous caveman 04:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)