Can Your Chronic Headache Be Induced by Medication Overuse?

Chronic daily headache is a sort of often occurring headache that can be further divided into following categories:

• Chronic migraine, also known as transformed migraine, is a disorder in which episodic migraine-type headaches develop increasingly regularly until the individual gets a migraine more than 15 days per month; 


• Drug overuse headache - a headache condition in which a person who previously had episodic primary headaches experiences them more frequently and is unable to attain adequate pain relief with standard drug dosages. Medication usage consequently rises, which, ironically, leads to headache discomfort.

Chronic everyday headaches are assumed to be the outcome of excessive pharmaceutical usage. The increased severity and frequency of headache symptoms is typically caused by the withdrawal of addictive pain relievers (e.g., aspirin, codeine) used to treat migraine or other kinds of primary headache (e.g., cluster headache). Frequent and frequent usage (especially misuse) of headache-relieving drugs might cause headaches and increase the individual's need for medication. However, some suggest that the order of events is inverted, with increasing headache frequency leading to drug usage rather than vice versa.

Chronic daily headaches can develop without drug misuse when tension-type, cluster, or migraine headaches become increasingly regular and severe. Some people with chronic daily headaches who abuse drugs do not recover after discontinuing the addictive prescription, implying that medication overuse did not cause the beginning of their chronic daily headaches.

Medication overuse and persistent migraine headaches, which were formerly considered the same illness, are now diagnosed using independent criteria. There are several subtypes of persistent daily headache. Chronic migraine is a relatively recent phrase that replaces transformed migraine and refers to headaches that are primarily migraineous in origin and occur in people who do not misuse pain management drugs. Those who take medicine should be identified as having a drug-overuse headache rather than chronic migraine.

Chronic headache treatment is different in this case, depending on whether the disease is caused by drug misuse, as medication overusers frequently fail to react to migraine treatments.

Headache Caused by Medication Overuse

Medication overuse headaches are the most common kind of daily headache, accounting for 90% of all chronic daily headache disorders. It accounts for 25-64% of presentations to specialized headache centers. One research found that drug-overuse headache affects 1% of the adult population and 0.5% of the teenage population.

Risk Factors

Individuals with a history of a primary headache syndrome suffer from chronic daily headaches. Those who endure regular headaches are more likely to acquire the disorder. Other variables that enhance risk include: 

• Female gender

For example, one study reported that women using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (e.g., aspirin) had a 13.6 times increased risk of developing chronic daily headache, and those using triptans (a type of pain reliever commonly used to treat migraine) had a 2.9 times increased risk compared to men using these medications;

• Increasing age

The disorder is more common in those aged 40-50;

• Arterial hypotension

It’s low blood pressure in the arteries. Has been linked to the progression of episodic to chronic migraine;

• Psychiatric disorders

Individuals who suffer from persistent daily headaches are more likely to develop psychiatric problems, particularly serious depression and anxiety disorders;

• Insomnia;


• Obesity;


• Excessive caffeine consumption and stress;


• Cutaneous allodynia - a pain caused by stimuli that would not typically produce pain, such as combing one's hair;


• Snoring.

Chronic Migraines

A lengthy history of persistent primary headache (many years) is the most important risk factor for chronic migraine. Chronic migraine can occur in those with a history of cluster or tension headaches, although it usually happens after a migraine.

What Medications Are Riskier?

Individuals with overuse headaches have a lengthy history of headaches. Over 80% of people who receive therapy for severe daily headaches take medications excessively. Those who take barbiturate or opioid-containing medications are more likely to get drug-overuse headaches, and the risk with barbiturates is dose-dependent.