What’s The Difference Between A Tension Headache And A Migraine?

If you suffer from tension headache, the pain is constant or steady in type. It is felt in the muscles at the back of the head or on both sides of the head; less often it is felt above the eyes. It may feel as if your head is gripped in a vise or constricted by a tight band; alternatively, you may experience only a sensation of weight or pressure on your head. Tension headaches are due to excessive or sustained contraction of the muscles of the scalp and the powerful muscles of the neck that support the head. For this reason they are also known as muscle-contraction headaches.

Migraine is rather different. The word "migraine" is derived from a French word meaning "half a head" and is appropriate because, in most cases, the ache affects only one side of the head. In contrast to tension headache, the pain soon becomes throbbing or pulsating in kind due to its origin mainly in overdistended arteries outside the skull. There is often a feeling of nausea or other digestive disturbance, and the pain may be so intense as to interfere with work and compel the individual to lie down. There may be more than one in the family who suffer from this kind of headache, because the tendency to develop migraine is inherited. In cases of "classical" migraine as opposed to common migraine an attack may be heralded by a preheadache warning or "aura," such as spots or flashes of light before the eyes.

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