What are chronic daily headaches?

While most people experience occasional headaches, some people experience headaches more often than others. The pain of each kind of headache impacts the sufferer in their day-to-day life. In some cases preventing them from functioning to their full potential and reducing overall the quality of life.

A chronic migraine headache can generally be felt on one side of the head and usually involves sensitivity to light and sound, and is usually accompanied by vomiting or nausea.

Chronic tension headaches usually only last a few hours, the pain affects both sides of the head. Sometimes people experience nausea or sensitivity to light and sound too.

New daily persistent headaches are generally felt as a constant pain on both sides of the head from the moment they start, with similar symptoms to the tension headache.

What causes chronic daily headaches?

In many cases it is hard to pinpoint the cause of chronic daily headaches. For some people it is the result of overusing pain medications. Taking prescription pain medicines, or even over-the-counter painkillers like paracetamol or ibuprofen several days each week can cause a rebound effect. This happens when a treatment starts to cause the problem it is being used to treat.

Some people who experience chronic daily headaches also have difficulty sleeping, living with anxiety and/or depression. Caffeine overuse or the sudden removal of caffeine from your diet can also bring about new daily persistent headaches. Persistent dehydration, stress, bad office lighting and excessive screen time have also been linked to chronic daily headaches.

Treatment

Ideally, you need to remove the cause of the problem if it has been identified. The first step is generally withdrawing all pain relieving medicines and any other substances that could be triggering the headaches, such as coffee.

Treating underlying conditions with the help of a doctor is an important step in the treatment process. For example with anxiety cases antidepressants are often the first choice of treatment as they help tackle the anxiety and in turn headaches reduce. Low doses of migraine-preventing medicines, such as beta blockers, can also be prescribed as a prevention method.

Taking action

If you or your family are affected by chronic or persistent headaches, talk to your pharmacist. Your pharmacist will be able to talk to you about what you may have used to treat the pain, what the possible causes might be. They can refer you on for further diagnosis and treatment if you need.

Chronic daily headaches can be debilitating and distressing. Don’t rely on self-diagnosis and treatment for common pain problems - consult our community pharmacists. They are always on hand to help with advice and treatments.