When it is dangerous to ignore the headache.

Few who have not experienced greater or lesser headaches. Headache for the older person may be not only a consequence of fatigue, but also much more serious prophet of diseases. If to talk about older aged people headaches, it is important to assess whether it was a new pain for the first time, or other pain caused next to the old one, or have changed the nature of the old headache – it intensified, increased, prolonged, etc.

One thing, if the pain accompanies a lifetime from the youth, then most likely it is the primary headaches, such as migraines. However, if headache occurred, very deteriorated or changed at the age of fifty, it may already be an alarm. This can probably be secondary or symptomatic headaches and prophet of new onset of serious illness. If new onset headache bothering you for a month or more, wakes up at night, get worse at dawn or coughing, it is necessarily visit the doctor immediate. Such pain may be caused by brain tumors; this disease is often accompanied by mental disorders. There is necessary complete neurological examination, if necessary you will get computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging.

Go immediately to the emergency department if a very strong headache strikes like a bolt from the blue. Often fifty percent of such cases the man faint. Then is suspected life-threatening situation – a brain blood vessels aneurysm rupture. Another situation requiring emergency response is where acute severe headache is accompanied by fever, nausea and or vomiting, or occurs in diseases such as flu, tonsillitis and pneumonia. In this case are possible brain infections – meningitis or encephalitis.

Headaches as symptom can occur for very different reasons. You can feel headache after getting stroke, cerebral circulatory insufficiency. It may be noted also cardiovascular disease, especially heart failure, as well as kidney failure and many other situations that can cause headaches.

In any case, both at the primary and symptomatic headaches, is advisable to refrain from self-medication. Depending on the type of pain therefore may be assigned completely different preparations. Episodic headache, which occurs rarely, and is assigned to other diseases, for example – chronic cerebral ischemia, can be suppressed symptomatically by painkillers. However, it is advisable that the family doctor, first would assess the overall state of health, especially if the headaches started in older age only, and then direct a patient for the consultation of neurologist.

In lighter cases where the headaches are not life-threatening disease’s symptom, perhaps a person needs only to adjust the work-rest schedule, learn to relax, more respect a healthy diet, take the body-building measures, and then will improve the health and general condition. Sometimes, under pain of psychogenic origin, may be required the help of the psychiatrist or psychologist. It is more common in younger people, the elders learn to better manage mental state.

A common problem for older people is dizziness. For some it occurs because of peripheral vestibular apparatus dysfunction. For the other group it occurs of the central vestibular apparatus damage that may be a result of neurological disorder such as chronic cerebral ischemia, multiple sclerosis, stroke and many other central nervous systems of chronic diseases. Dizziness as an accompanying symptom may occur in patients with a variety of other chronic somatic diseases. Women are suffering from migraine three times more often than men.

Picture by Pixabay.com