What is Headache, chronic tension type?

Headache, chronic tension type

What is chronic tension headache?

Tension headaches can happen when you're feeling stressed, tired or angry. If you have chronic tension headache, you get these headaches a lot of the time.

Doctors say you have chronic tension headache if you get tension headaches more than 15 days a month for at least three months.

Source:
Headache Classification Subcommittee of the International Headache Society.
The International Classification of Headache Disorders: 2nd edition.
Cephalalgia. 2004; 24 Suppl 1: 9-160.

Chronic tension headaches are usually mild, but they happen often.

Chronic is a word doctors use to describe any medical condition that people live with for a long time. It doesn't mean that a condition is severe. In fact, tension headaches are usually fairly mild. But it's because they happen so often that they can be a problem.

We don't know for sure what causes tension headaches.

Some doctors think the pain is caused by tension in the muscles of your neck, your face or your scalp. This kind of tension can be triggered by stress, worry, depression or anger.

Source:
Pace B, Lynm C, Glass RM.
JAMA patient page: tension headache.
Journal of the American Medical Association. 2001; 285: 2282.

² Bad posture can also cause your muscles to tense up, especially if you work at a desk all day.
But other doctors don't think these headaches are caused by tension in the muscles at all. So they prefer to call these tension-type headaches.

Chronic tension headaches are different from migraines. Migraines are very bad headaches that can make you want to lie down in a dark room. To read more, see our information on Migraines and Migraines in children.

Most people with chronic tension headache have had headaches on and off for years.

About 1 in 6 people say their headaches began before they were 10 years of age.

Source:
Lance JW, Curran DA, Anthony M.
Investigations into the mechanism and treatment of chronic headache.
Medical Journal of Australia. 1965; 2: 909-914.

You are more likely to get chronic tension headaches if:

Source:
Lance JW, Curran DA, Anthony M.
Investigations into the mechanism and treatment of chronic headache.
Medical Journal of Australia. 1965; 2: 909-914.

Source:
Friedman AP, von Storch TJC, Merritt HH.
Migraine and tension headaches: a clinical study of two thousand cases.
Neurology. 1954; 4: 773-788.

⁴

Source:
Russell MB, Ostergaard S, Bendtsen L, et al.
Familial occurrence of chronic tension-type headache.
Cephalalgia. 1999; 19: 207-210.

⁵

You're a woman
You're a young person
You do very little exercise
Other people in your family get headaches.

Sources for the information on this page:

Headache Classification Subcommittee of the International Headache Society.The International Classification of Headache Disorders: 2nd edition.Cephalalgia. 2004; 24 Suppl 1: 9-160.

Pace B, Lynm C, Glass RM.JAMA patient page: tension headache.Journal of the American Medical Association. 2001; 285: 2282.

Lance JW, Curran DA, Anthony M.Investigations into the mechanism and treatment of chronic headache.Medical Journal of Australia. 1965; 2: 909-914.

Friedman AP, von Storch TJC, Merritt HH.Migraine and tension headaches: a clinical study of two thousand cases.Neurology. 1954; 4: 773-788.

Russell MB, Ostergaard S, Bendtsen L, et al.Familial occurrence of chronic tension-type headache.Cephalalgia. 1999; 19: 207-210.

This information was last updated on May 01, 2008

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