Migraines Common After Traumatic Brain Injury

January 12, 2018, by Michael Melton

Although headache is ubiquitous among brain injury patients, not all concussion-related headaches are the same. A new study demonstrates that post-brain injury headaches can fall into the same categories as regular headaches.

In the study, researcher analyzed 378 brain-injury patients undergoing rehabilitation. They discovered that migraines were the most common type of headache suffered by brain-injury patients. 38% of patients had migraine and 25% had probable migraine, or symptoms that probably indicated migraine. 21% of patients had tension headache and just 10% had cervicogenic headaches. Women were more likely to have migraines before and after the injury, reflecting the greater prevalence of migraine among women. (In another recent study, girls and teens were also more likely to have chronic headaches following a concussion.)

This research suggests that brain-injury related headaches can be diagnosed and treated like regular headaches. Your treatment will differ depending on whether you have tension, cervicogenic or migraine headaches.

Reference

Lucas S, Hoffman JM, Walker W, and Dikmen S. Characterization of headache after traumatic brain injury. Cephalalgia 2012. E-pubished ahead of print. doi: 10.1177/0333102412445224.