Headaches are of many types. Feeling pain in your temple is not something you can instantly diagnose, although it is something you instantly want relief from.
Since our eyes are located inside our heads and have a lot to do with our brain’s processing, it’s natural to suppose that certain eye problems are causing headaches. However, it’s imperative that you can identify the types of headaches and their causes before you diagnose something to be related to the eyes. The causes can range through a wide variety of problems. However, it’s best to consult an eye specialist in Dubai.
Types of Headaches
Stress Aches
Statistics reveal that women are more likely to experience stress aches as compared to men. Yet, it still doesn’t mean that men don’t ever get stress aches. It is also called a tension headache. If you’re going through a lot of stressful situations, you’re likely to feel headaches that persevere. Unless you are going through the same situations for prolonged periods of time, these can subside. In the off chance that you’re still facing the same stimuli, they tend to adopt a chronic state and persist through half a month for every 3 months as well.
The way to identify stress aches is to point out the central area of the pain. If you’re feeling pressure and tightening around the forehead or behind the eyes, this could mean that it’s a stress ache. You can also experience a dull head pain that can be a symptom of stress aches. Similarly, tenderness in the scalp is also a common symptom for stress aches. It’s crucial to note that stress aches can also exist around the neck as well. If you feel pain in the forehead and the neck simultaneously, you might have stress aches.
Cluster Headaches
Cluster headaches are short bursts of pain that course through your head at least 3 or four times. Although they are not as common as stress aches, you’re likely to experience them every once in a while.
These headaches span over a time of 15 minutes and go even beyond to last for a complete hour. The main identification of this type of headache is the central focus of the pain being a piercing sensation behind one eye. The thing about cluster headaches is that they often carry visible symptoms like red or swollen eyes. Furthermore, you can experience excessive tearing as well.
Migraines
Almost everyone has heard of migraines due to their excruciating nature. These are also similar to stress aches and can be felt as pain behind the eyes. The thing that makes that excruciating is their tendency to last for hours or even days. These painful sensations are known to cause severe life-altering problems in some cases as well.
Symptoms for migraines include vomiting, nausea, dizziness and weakness leading to mood changes. Furthermore, you can also experience vision problems such as impairment or pain in the eyes.
Eye Strain
Eye strain owes its occurrence mostly to excessive screen-time. If you have Myopia (nearsightedness) that you don’t know of or haven’t treated yet, it can also cause eye strain. Staring too long at computer or television screens can result in eye strain. The overstimulation occurring in the brain due to constantly staring at a screen can result in a headache.
Now let’s take a look at some of the most common eye problems that can result in eye strain and other headaches:
Glaucoma
When your optic nerve gets damaged, it often results in Glaucoma. This is usually caused by high pressure inside the eye. When continued for long periods of time, it can cause damage to the optic nerve tissue. This further causes blindness or major loss in vision. However, if caught at an early stage, it can reduce the chances of losing your sight permanently.
Although there are many types of glaucoma, the most commonly prevailing one is the primary open-angle glaucoma. The important thing to note about this is that it has no other symptom except for the loss of vision. It’s imperative that you get the best glaucoma treatment in Dubai at the earliest stage possible to prevent total vision loss.
Scleritis
This is a disorder that can result in inflammation or reddening of the white part of the eye, i.e. the sclera. The sclera is the white part of the eye that makes up to about 83% of the overall eye surface. Moreover, it’s also responsible for helping the eye move around. Since it exists as the outermost layer of the eye, it’s easy to diagnose scleritis.
It occurs when the immune system of the body overreacts. There are many types of scleritis such as anterior, nodular anterior, necrotizing anterior with and without inflammation and posterior scleritis.
All of these are likely to cause excruciating pain around, behind or in the eyes.
Optic Neuritis
When the optic nerve that is responsible for transmitting visual data to the brain gets inflamed, it results in a condition called optic neuritis. This condition can be caused by an infection or a nerve disease. Not only can it result in severe pain behind the eyes, but it can also cause temporary vision blindness in one eye. This blindness can subside once the inflammation is gone. However, this process can take up to 2-12 months.
Treatment is mostly done either with medication such as corticosteroids or naturally since it heals over time. The chances of getting optic neuritis are higher in females of ages 18-45, if you already have multiple sclerosis, or if you live at higher altitudes. Furthermore, neuromyelitis optica or Schilder’s disease can cause optic neuritis as well.
Graves’ Disease
Graves’ disease is a disorder that causes thyroid glands to create an excess of thyroid hormone. This condition is also known as hyperthyroidism and Graves’ disease is one type of this disease. The antibodies that are created in Graves’ Disease known as thyroid-stimulating immunoglobulins attach themselves with healthy thyroid cells. This increases the production of the thyroid hormone that ends up affecting a lot of areas of our body.
One of the areas that are affected is the brain and the nervous system. This can cause headaches around and behind the eyes. Without treatment, Graves’ Disease can bring about serious disastrous circumstances such as drastic weight loss, emotional instability, depression along with mental and physical fatigue.
If you’re feeling hand tremors, weight loss, rapid heart rate, tiredness, nervousness, irritation, muscle weakness, goitre or diarrhea, you should consult an ophthalmology clinic in Dubai to ensure you’re not suffering from Graves’ Disease.
