Chapter 6 - Brooke Johnson: A 30-Year-Old Teacher With Frequent Headaches Involving the Head and Neck

Abstract

Medication overuse headache, which is also known as analgesic rebound headache, is a problematic secondary headache syndrome that occurs in headache sufferers who overuse abortive medications to treat their symptoms. The overuse of these medications results in increasingly frequent headaches that become unresponsive to both abortive and prophylactic medications. Over a period of weeks, the patient’s headache symptoms become more frequent and transform into a chronic daily headache. This daily headache becomes increasingly unresponsive to analgesics and other medications, and the patient notes an exacerbation of headache symptoms if abortive or prophylactic analgesic medications are missed or delayed. Medication overuse headache is more common in females and in headache sufferers with comorbid depression, anxiety, and other chronic pain conditions. Medication overuse headache is probably underdiagnosed by health care professionals, and its frequency is on the rise owing to the heavy advertising of over-the-counter headache medications containing caffeine.