Many people suffering from symptoms like headache, stuffy nose, itching and watery eyes think it as sinus headache. Is it true?
About 4 out of 5 people with migraine misunderstand it as sinus headache.
Mr.Peter Goadsby, MD, head of University of California, San Francisco’s headache program says that it is a wide spread misbelief and many people believe it.
It is important to know the difference between migraine and sinus headache because of differences in the causes and signs and also due to different treatments.
Different causes and signs
Both sinus and migraine has few signs and symptoms similar like
- Pain in forehead and head
- Watery and itching eyes
- Pain and discomfort when you move
Though the above symptoms are same for sinus and migraine, but people with migraine face few other symptoms also like
- Vomiting
- Sensitivity to light and sound
- Pain in one side of the head
According to Stephen Silberstein, MD, a neurology professor of Thomas Jefferson University, “many people with severe headache which is often are treated as suffering from migraine”. He says many people who visit doctors for severe headache that comes and go actually have migraine. People suffering from sinus first say that they are not feeling well and also have a headache.
Generally infections and inflammation of nasal passages leads to sinus headache. This inflammation in nasal passages leads to congestion, which increase the pressure and leads to pain in the forehead and sinuses.
Different treatments for sinus and migraine
Treatment for sinus includes decongestants, pain killers and nasal drops to get relief from pain, pressure and also to give relief from congestion and to clear the nasal passages. In the next stage antibiotics are prescribed to treat the underlying infection. The sinus headache caused mainly due to infection will get cured quickly with the treatment.
Whereas migraine treatment not just focus on treating the headache when it started but also focuses on preventing the migraine attack and also on controlling the frequency of attacks, its severity and the duration how long it lasts. People who face migraine attacks can have the prescriptions to get relief from the pain, severity and also to get back to their daily routines.
