I was speaking to a woman looking at the different family plans available for her and her family the other day and was telling me about the headaches her son gets. She was trying to replace her existing coverage with a different policy because she felt that the monthly health insurance premiums were too high. Also, she did not want a high deductible health plan because of the treatment that her son needed when he got a headache. It seems that the headaches were so severe that the only way to treat them was to take him to the ER and have the doctors give him a narcotic that would put him to sleep!

While most people that get headaches do not experience symptoms that are that severe they can still be pretty uncomfortable until the headache passes. When should you just take a couple of aspirin, and when should you make an appointment to see your doctor? Health day has listed the warning signs when severe headaches could be an indication of a more serious health problem. They are:

*Headaches that occur multiple times each month and persist for hours or days.
*Headaches that are so severe that work, school and home life are affected.
*Headaches accompanied by tingling or numbness, changes in vision, vomiting or nausea.
*Headaches accompanied by pain surrounding the ear or eye, convulsions or stiffness in the neck.
*Losing consciousness or feeling confused during headache.
*A headache that follows an injury to the head.
*Headaches that suddenly occur when youve rarely had headaches in the past.

The most common types of primary headaches are tension, migraine, and
Cluster. Tension headaches can usually be helped with over the counter medication. Remember that beginning in 2011 if you have an HSA you will be required to get a prescription for OTC drugs in order to pay for the drug from your HSA. With Migraine headaches the most effective treatment is usually prevention. Your doctor will probably ask you to keep a food diary so he can determine what triggers the headache. A drug that helps with prevention like lmitrez, which constricts dilated blood vessels in the brain, may also be used.

I used to think that cluster headaches meant that they were clustered in your head. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They actually get their name because they occur in cyclical patterns or clusters. Cluster headaches will usually awaken you in the middle of the night with intense pain in or around the eye on one side of your head. These headaches are one of the most painful types of headache. Like migraines the best treatment is prevention.

Secondary headaches are a symptom that there is an underlying injury or illness. Some of the causes of secondary headache could be life-threatening and deadly. Get yourself to a doctor right away. The word neuralgia means nerve pain. A group of headaches that occur because the nerves in the head and upper neck are inflamed are the source for the pain in the head for cranial neuralgia headache. A medical doctor that would treat cranial neuralgia headaches would be a Neurologist.