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What do they feel like?

Most of this chapter is taken up with writings by actual patients themselves - by the people who knowbestwhat headaches and migraines feel like.

The most important thing to point out is that even the word headache is something of a misnomer. Many people with headaches do not feel an ache at alL T hey feel burning pain, or sharp or stabbing pain, or something else. People with a pain in the head are simply reflecting the fact that we have, perhaps, chosen a bad word to represent headache. If we could start all over again, making new words, it might be better to say ‘headpain’, but we cannot change history. Psychologists try very hard to equate different people's experiences of pain, and construct words that we can all use and with which we all agree, but it is not an easy task. We all have our own ways of expressing things, and no two people are the same. So, when you read what people have to say about their headaches or migraines, remember that you will not always agree with them. Your experiences will be a lit tle different.

In this chapter, you will read about what various types of headaches usually feel like. As with everything, there areexceptions to the rule, but it would take a lifetime to write a book about the unusual cases. Every possible type and ca use of headache is not backed up with a person a 1 account, simply because this book would consist of hundreds of pages were that to be so. The most common types are covered, however. The three most commonly diagnosed headaches are tension-type, migraine and cluster, and if you are having a headache it is probably one of these, and morę probably one of the first two types.

Tension-type headaches

Thefollowing story shows howmuch a so-called normal headache, the tension-type, can easily beconfused with migraine. In sorne cases, the main difference

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