Less common causes
Doctors are also on the lookout for headaches resulting from injuries, fever, medical illnesses, dental problems, and other less common causes.
Temporal arteritis is a one - sided, throbbing headache caused by an inflamed artery on the side of your head, which is firm to the touch but sensitive. You will also notice that you have been feeling run - down and tired for some time and have pains in your muscles and joints. Your doctor will do a blood test, called a sedimentation rate, and will appear disconcerted by the result, which in temporal arteritis is often high. The doctor will then insist on prescribing steroids to prevent serious compli - cations, such as blindness, and that is good advice.
Glaucoma sometimes presents as a headache with eye pain and vomiting.
Blood vessel abnormalities can cause headaches that arrive repeat - edly on the same side of the head. By contrast, migraines will at least occasionally affect either side of your head, and cluster headaches will often switch sides when a new cluster begins. Neither of these generally has the nerve symptoms that blood vessel abnormalities can bring.
If you have a headache without having had them before, and it has slowly increased in intensity and frequency and does not fit the typical
pattern of a migraine, cluster, or tension headache, your doctor will run tests looking for increased pressure inside the skull or other causes.
