Headache when moving - causes and treatment

When a person has a headache when moving, but there are no symptoms at rest, the cause of the pathology is difficult to determine. It can be connected both to the vessels and organs of the head, and to other parts of the body. After laboratory diagnostics, you can confidently make a diagnosis and prescribe treatment.

Before making a diagnosis, each patient can independently find out what awaits him, what diseases may be hidden behind the constant pain in the head that occurs during movement, bending or turning.

Brain tumors

If there are tumors in the skull, in the initial stages the headache only occurs when moving and a combination of some other factors. Pathology can be recognized by specific symptoms:

• pain occurs in the first 3 hours after waking up, symptoms may intensify over time and lead to loss of consciousness;
• when lying down or coughing, symptoms intensify;
• the pain is located in the area where the tumor develops;
• morning attacks are rare at first, then occur more often and more acutely;
• pain appears after physical activity;
• As the disease progresses, numbness in various parts of the body, confusion and vomiting appear.

Brain cancer in 95% of cases requires surgery if the tumor is within the size that can be operated on. Additionally, the patient undergoes standard chemotherapy and treatment with concomitant medications.

Intoxication

Another common reason why a headache occurs while moving. The symptom is associated with the effects of toxins on the body. This could be harmful substances from foods, or excessive use of medications. Sometimes headaches occur due to infectious or parasitic poisoning.

Important! Headache when moving as a result of intoxication is possible after drinking alcohol or using a large amount of household chemicals for a short period of time.

However, most often there is a constant headache after poisoning, and additional symptoms are also present: vomiting, weakness, nausea and fever. The symptom goes away as soon as toxins are removed from the body using enterosorbents.

Pain in the head when moving the eyes

This symptom is often associated with fatigue and inflammation in the organs of vision. With glaucoma, intraocular pressure increases, which leads to the same pain. When infected, pus, redness, itching and dryness appear.

Also, pressing pain when moving the eyes can appear in diseases:

• brain cysts and tumors;
• high pressure;
• encephalitis and meningitis;
• VSD;
• arachnoiditis;
• cerebral edema.

Sometimes such a symptom is the only manifestation of the disease. If numbness of the facial skin or increased sensitivity occurs, you should consult a neurologist.

If you have a headache when moving, it may be a symptom of a serious illness or poisoning. But in some cases, this is a normal reaction of the body. You need to sound the alarm if a symptom appears more than 1-2 times a month and is accompanied by additional sensations: numbness, vomiting, nausea, fainting.

Arterial hypertension

When the lumen of the blood channels narrows, hypertension occurs. This process occurs due to various factors, including stress, hormonal imbalances, atherosclerosis and irregular daily routine. Most often, headaches occur when moving, sudden lifting or bending, and pain occurs after physical exertion. Less often - it worries constantly.

Additionally, patients note redness of the face, and the painful sensations are pressing, bursting and pulsating. A rapid pulse and weakness are often observed.

Temporal arteritis

The rarest factor that can cause a headache with various body movements, bending and shaking. Inflammation of the arteries in the temple area appears, the surrounding tissues swell, and the lumen of the blood vessels narrows. If the pathology is not treated, thrombosis develops, dangerously located near the carotid artery and other blood supply systems to the brain.

Painful sensations persist from the swollen arteries and intensify with any movement, including chewing. In the acute phase of the disease, the patient experiences high fever and nausea. You need to treat with special medications; simple analgesics will not help.

Other vascular diseases and headaches

There is a whole range of reasons that cause headaches. Most vascular diseases are accompanied by spasms, which intensify with any movement. It often occurs in those who move little or suffer from hypertension, VSD, or osteochondrosis.

With vascular diseases, the headache is sharp, without obvious factors. It may be so strong that a person cannot do anything. Antispasmodics or analgesics will help relieve pain, but they will not provide a medicinal effect, like any other compresses, poultices and folk recipes.

Safe ways to relieve symptoms

NSAIDs are prescribed to reduce pain

Treatment of headaches that occur when moving, bending or shaking is prescribed taking into account the cause of the symptom, which is determined based on the results of a comprehensive diagnosis.

The most common way to stop the clinical picture is to take medications from the group of painkillers (analgesics) or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. However, the drugs do not affect the cause of the pain, but act symptomatically, drowning out the discomfort for a certain time.

In case of severe pain, drug blockades or drugs from the group of glucocorticoids (hormonal drugs) are prescribed.

If the headache is caused by tension or is a migraine, an effective method to cope with this condition is manual therapy. In combination, you can perform a massage that will perfectly cope with symptoms caused by cervical trauma, changes in the spine in the corresponding area, and chronic migraine.

Another effective method of treating the causes of headaches is acupuncture, which involves applying special needles to specific points on a person’s torso. As a result, the work of organs that are innervated by the corresponding nerve endings is activated, and the process of self-healing of the body begins.

You can notice the first changes in your well-being after acupuncture after a few sessions. After a course of therapy, the headache completely disappears and performance improves, and the pathological processes associated with the cause of the symptom slow down.

Physiotherapy has proven itself well in relieving pain. It could be:

• laser therapy;
• magnetic therapy;
• ultrasonic influence;
• direct or alternating currents;
• electrophoresis;
• phonophoresis.

Physical therapy is prescribed if the cause of pain in the head is a disease of the cervical spine, as well as after injuries to the corresponding area. Exercise therapy allows you to reduce the risk of congestion, speed up metabolic processes, reduce, and over time completely eliminate swelling and pain.

Extracorporeal hemocorrection is used for cerebral vascular atherosclerosis. The method involves cleansing the blood of excess cholesterol, which, when deposited on the walls of the branches, contributes to the formation of atherosclerotic plaques.

Osteochondrosis and neuritis

With osteochondrosis, the head hurts when a person makes any movements. But this is more typical for periods of exacerbations. This happens due to instability of the vertebrae, compression of nerves or blood vessels. Headaches are most often located in the neck and back of the head.

With neuritis, a person loses sensitivity in certain areas of the body. Pulsating, sharp pain is most often found in the head area. Also, with inflammation of the facial nerve, puffiness and numbness of the facial muscles appear. The discomfort becomes stronger when the patient moves his neck.

Types and characteristics of pain

People are different from person to person, so painful sensations in the head manifest themselves differently in everyone: for some they are short-term and infrequent, for others they are long-lasting and regular. They warn some of their occurrence, and take others by surprise.

For convenience, we will divide the types of cephalalgia (there are about 200 in total) into conditional subgroups. So, judging by their character, they can be pulsating, pressing, sharp, bursting, etc. By intensity: light, moderate and strong. By localization: unilateral and bilateral, frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital.

Based on their origin, five types of cephalalgia can be distinguished:

1. Tension headache (TTH). The most common type. The main cause is tension in the spinal-cervical muscles. The symptoms are almost always the same: monotonous severe or moderate pain, of a compressive nature. The main places of localization are the cervical-occipital zone or the front part of the head. TTH gains momentum gradually and is never pulsating. It can be observed in osteochondrosis, eye diseases, and neuroses.
2. Vascular. This type is associated with the pathology of the head vessels, the condition of the blood and the circulatory regime. In the first case, cephalalgia is characterized by bursting pain and heaviness in the head. These signs appear against the background of a fixed position of the head for a long time, with a hysterical cough, crying or laughing. They disappear gradually. In the latter cases, cephalgia is characterized by symptoms such as dull pain spreading throughout the head, weakness, pulsation in the temples, noise or ringing in the ears. Vascular headaches can also occur due to head injuries and contusions, infections and various diseases.
3. Neuralgic. This species is characterized by a sudden attack. A person is pierced by acute pain, which can be provoked by touching certain areas of the face or head. Painful sensations are felt in other places, then replaced by dull pain. The causes of such cephalgia are local compression of the nerve, damage to it by infectious toxins, or a malfunction of the pain and anti-pain mechanisms of the central nervous system.
4. Liquorodynamic. The development of pain can be affected by excessive production of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), disruption of its outflow, or insufficient absorption by the membranes of the brain. Such disruptions provoke intracranial hypertension, which is characterized by a feeling of internal pressure on the brain, i.e. as if it were bursting the head from the inside. Liquorodynamic pain is often accompanied by nausea and vomiting. In some cases, motor and speech disorders develop.
5. Infectious-toxic. Some infections (for example, meningitis) have a special love for brain tissue and its membranes. The signal of their activity is cephalgia. True, it can be caused by toxins from infections that other organs love, but can affect the pain and anti-pain mechanisms of the central nervous system, reduce the threshold of pain sensitivity, and irritate pain receptors.

By the way, a discovery was recently made that migraine (a type of vascular pain) can be caused by one of the herpes viruses. He is capable of not making himself known for a long time, but when favorable conditions arise, he always shows his vile nature. It is impossible to cure herpes; the only thing you can do is relieve its symptoms with antiherpes viral drugs.

Headaches are not always a sign of serious health problems, but if they are intense, increasing, of the same type and often recurring, then it is better not to delay a visit to the doctor.

Other reasons

A headache may occur when moving the head due to increased tone of the neck muscles. Sometimes the symptom occurs against the background of myalgia. To eliminate the symptom, it is not enough to take pills; you can use ointments that improve muscle condition.

Long-term consequences of a head injury - a person gets a concussion or other illnesses, and their complications begin several years later. Sudden headaches that have no other explanation are sometimes such a complication.

There are other causes of cephalgia, or headache, as doctors call it:

• colds - both at the onset of the disease and during its development. If a person has unpleasant sensations in the nose and throat, a headache when moving the eyes or body, one can suspect an early period of influenza, acute respiratory viral infection, or another virus;
• sinusitis - with the accumulation of pus in the nasal sinuses, the pain is localized in different areas of the skull. The same thing occurs with other diseases of the ENT organs: exacerbation of tonsillitis, sinusitis;
• diseases of the eyes and teeth - caries, various hidden pathologies of the visual organs. Sharp, severe pain when chewing may occur during the eruption of wisdom teeth in adults;
• intestinal pathologies - even with such diseases, headaches are possible. Most often, acute pancreatitis, enteritis or colitis, as well as other intestinal pathologies are detected.

Instead of hypertension, high intracranial pressure becomes the cause of pain. In diseases of the teeth and ENT organs, pain is often located in the temples or behind the ear.

Source of the problem

There are several possible causes of headaches while moving. The most common of them is a disorder in the functioning of cerebral vessels, which may be associated with:

• excessive physical and emotional stress;
• fatigue;
• colds;
• acute stress disorders.

In addition, pain occurs as a symptom of the following pathological conditions:

1. Migraine. A neurological disorder that is accompanied by regular or episodic episodes of pain affecting one or both halves of the head. During a migraine attack caused by vascular dysfunction, a strong and excruciating feeling of pain can last for hours or disappear in a few minutes. The condition is accompanied by a pressing sensation in the back of the head, forehead and neck, increased sensitivity to light and sounds, dizziness, irritability, and apathy. Often the patient's vision becomes dark. Symptoms are worse during movement, but can also occur when at rest;
2. Sinusitis (inflammation of the paranasal sinuses). This group includes sinusitis, sinusitis, sphenoiditis and ethmoiditis (the exact type is determined by which sinus was affected). The most vivid pain occurs in case of inflammation of the frontal sinuses. They can radiate to the frontal, temporal and occipital parts of the head, as well as to the jaw area, left or right ear. If a patient enters a warm room after a cold street, then when he turns his head, the pain begins to pulsate. This is due to the weakness of the vascular system, which leads to intolerance to sudden temperature changes. The clinical picture of the disease is complemented by nasal congestion, purulent discharge, tinnitus, elevated body temperature and chills. In particularly severe cases, hospital treatment and sinus rinsing may be required;
3. Neuritis. With this pathology, the nerve becomes inflamed or pinched. Pain in the back of the head, neck and forehead usually indicates that the occipital nerve has been damaged. As a rule, unpleasant sensations occur only on one side of the head, although bilateral damage is also possible. If you touch the hair or the surface of the scalp, the pain syndrome becomes more pronounced. The duration of one attack can be up to several hours. The pain is usually dull, burning, shooting or throbbing. Other symptoms of neuritis include numbness of the hands, pale skin, chills and loss of all types of sensitivity;
4. Brain tumors. Malignant or benign formations in the head, destructively affecting brain tissue and cells. The tumor increases intracranial pressure, so it is difficult to relieve pain with simple analgesics. It can appear at rest and when a person moves, and its strength does not depend on the time of day. Associated symptoms may include disturbances in vision, speech, memory, sensation and motor function;
5. Cervical osteochondrosis. The disease is associated with deformation of the intervertebral discs and ossification of the pulp (the process affects blood vessels and nerve processes). At the moment when a person experiences physical tension, makes sudden movements or is simply in an uncomfortable position, the unpleasant sensations intensify. The patient has a “shooting” in the head, a bursting and pressing feeling occurs, the pain radiates to the neck and shoulder blades. It is difficult to eliminate this pain syndrome. In addition, your hands become numb, your head feels dizzy, and you have difficulty orienting yourself in space.

A child may also experience a headache with sudden movements. The above pathologies can cause this, but usually in childhood the disease is associated with an insufficiently nutritious diet (a growing body requires more nutrients) or traumatic brain injuries.

Other reasons

In addition to the factors already listed, pain is provoked by:

• stretching of the neck muscles;
• muscle spasms and tension associated with prolonged holding of one position;
• colds;
• arterial hypertension (often occurs during pregnancy);
• allergies.

Causes of pain during exercise

During physical activity, headaches are not always due to the development of diseases or any vascular disorders. This may be due to increased loads and improper exercise performance.

Important! When diving and other water sports, headaches are associated with changes in pressure.

To get rid of such attacks, you need to take a warm shower and massage your head. If the sensations become constant after and during physical activity, you should consult a doctor.