Overlap of primary headaches, Birjand, 2000

Abstract

Background and Objective: Overlap of primary headaches is common and it causes difficulty in correct diagnosis and effective management of headache. Methods: This study was done on patients with headache. The headache was diagnosed by a neurologist according to criteria that developed by international headache society. All patients were followed up at least for three times. The effect of sex on overlap of migraine and tension headaches were analyzed by Chi-square test and differences was considered at P<0.05. Findings: Within 531 studied patients (395 were female and 136 were male), overlap of migraine subtypes occurred in 40.7% of females and 32.1% of males with migraine. Also, tension headache was observed in 30% of females and 18.6% of males with migraine that it was not significantly meaningful. One of five males with cluster headache was involved in trigeminal neuralgia and one of two females with chronic paroxysmal hemicrania had migraine. Conclusion: Coexistence of primary headaches was common and there was not a significant difference between males and females.

Keywords

• headache
• migraine
• overlap
• coexistence