Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Aug;15(Suppl 1):S40-50.
doi: 10.4103/0972-2327.100002.

Chronic daily headaches

Fayyaz Ahmed  1 , Rajsrinivas Parthasarathy, Modar Khalil
Affiliations

Chronic daily headaches

Fayyaz Ahmed et al. Ann Indian Acad Neurol. 2012 Aug.

Abstract

Chronic Daily Headache is a descriptive term that includes disorders with headaches on more days than not and affects 4% of the general population. The condition has a debilitating effect on individuals and society through direct cost to healthcare and indirectly to the economy in general. To successfully manage chronic daily headache syndromes it is important to exclude secondary causes with comprehensive history and relevant investigations; identify risk factors that predict its development and recognise its sub-types to appropriately manage the condition. Chronic migraine, chronic tension-type headache, new daily persistent headache and medication overuse headache accounts for the vast majority of chronic daily headaches. The scope of this article is to review the primary headache disorders. Secondary headaches are not discussed except medication overuse headache that often accompanies primary headache disorders. The article critically reviews the literature on the current understanding of daily headache disorders focusing in particular on recent developments in the treatment of frequent headaches.

Keywords: Chronic daily headache; chronic migraine; chronic tension type headache; hemicrania continua; new daily persistent headache.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: Nil

References

    1. Olesen J, Bousser MG, Diener HC, Dodick D, First M, Goadsby PJ, et al. Headache Classification Committee. New appendix criteria open for a broader concept of chronic migraine. Cephalalgia. 2006;26:742–6. - PubMed
    1. Castillo J, Muñoz P, Guitera V, Pascual J. Kaplan Award 1998: Epidemiology of chronic daily headache in the general population. Headache. 1999;39:190–6. - PubMed
    1. Scher AI, Midgette LA, Lipton RB. Risk factors for headache chronification. Headache. 2008;48:16–25. - PubMed
    1. Karakurum B, Soylu O, Karataş M, Giray S, Tan M, Arlier Z, et al. Personality, depression, and anxiety as risk factors for chronic migraine. Int J Neurosci. 2004;114:1391–9. - PubMed
    1. Dodick DW. Debate: Analgesic overuse is a cause not consequence, of chronic daily headache analgesic overuse is not a cause of chronic daily headache. Headache. 2002;42:547–54. - PubMed