What Makes Us Different
Diagnosing Headache: Is It Important? Has It Helped?
“For the clinician, pain presentations in the headache patient are frequently a diagnostic challenge”.1
This pretty much sums it up! Surveys show that many headache and migraine sufferers have been given not one, but two, three, sometimes four diagnoses.2
Confusion reigns... but more so it is an indication that the current way of looking at headache-migraine is not working.
Most of you who experience Tension-type Headache will occasionally experience a more severe headache resembling a ‘Migraine’; conversely most Migraineurs occasionally experience a lesser headache similar to a Tension-type Headache. This has led to some medical authorities suggesting that Migraine and Tension-type Headache are not separate conditions with different (and currently unknown) causes, but are different presentations of one condition. This situation can be likened to rheumatoid arthritis for example: rheumatoid arthritis is one condition, with one diagnosis and one cause. Some afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis are severely crippled by the disease, that is a ‘Migraine’ on the headache scale, whilst others have slight swelling of joints of the fingers or wrist, corresponding to Tension-type Headache.
The possibility that the numerous headache and migraine types are different presentations of one disorder has recently been supported by research demonstrating that both Migraine and Tension-type Headache conditions share a common disorder, and that is, a SENSITISED BRAINSTEM.
We are told that ‘Migraine’ is not just another headache but ... the research suggests otherwise, i.e., Migraine is just another headache albeit a very, very severe headache and, along with Cluster Headache, is the worst of headaches.
Perhaps then a diagnosis is not particularly important. A diagnosis after-all is just based on a set of signs and symptoms - it doesn’t tell us what the cause is. Given that Tension-type headache and Migraine come from a similar disorder, perhaps...
...it is more powerful to identify the reason for the sensitisation of the brainstem and eliminate it; this is our primary focus and is what makes us different - what we do for you - at a Watson Headache Clinic.