Tests That Determine Cause of Headaches

Dr. Newman explains the different types of tests that are used to make the diagnosis of patients with headaches.
Patients ask me all the time what kind of tests are needed to make the diagnosis of their headache, and in general most people who suffer from headache, have a benign headache or a primary type of headache.
And by this I mean the headache itself is the problem. By taking a good history and by examining the patient book medically and doing a focused neurologic exam, most patients in fact are found to have a benign headache disorder and as such no tests are indicated.
If however, your doctor uncover something abnormal in either the history or in the physical or neurologic exam, then they may refer you on for either a imaging test such an MRI or CAT scan or certain blood tests to look for either infections or other inflammatory disorders that may be causing your headache.
Recently, a patient came into my practice and was convinced because her headaches were so severe there must have been a sinister cause to her headache, and she wanted to know what tests needed to be ordered.
In fact in taking the history, it was clear that the patient probably had migraine headache. I say this because she had a long family history of headaches, her headache started in her teens, and has now been 20 years having similar headaches several times per month.
The headaches met the criteria for migraine. They were one-sided. They were throbbing. She was light and sound sensitive, and occasionally nauseated with the headache, and she had no abnormalities on her neurologic or medical exam.
In fact, I ordered an MRI purely to make the patient feel at ease and not surprisingly the tests came back perfectly normal. But having that information that her exam was normal and her brain scan was normal put the patient at ease, and allowed me to treat her properly.
Learn more about Lawrence C. Newman, MD: 
www.einstein.yu.edu/faculty/pr...

[@Shogun1982]

Soooooo, that means you don't know the cause of the migraine/headache.

[@webserieslover9425]

You have to recommended to homoeopathic Doctor for chronic type of headache

[@sarahsahar5622]

can you see cluster headache on a mri scan?

[@holdingcopsaccountable6554]

I don’t know. Sorry. I wish I knew.