Sleep Disorders

Glossary

"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow". - Charlotte Bronte

Sleep Disorders and Headaches

There is a profound connection between sleep and headaches. They both derive from the most primitive animalistic part of the brain. Headaches are symptoms of insomnia and other sleep disorders, and the pain from headache can disrupt sleep. Sleep disorders and headaches are often co-morbid and share anatomy and physiology and their treatment is often intertwined.

Morning headache – waking up with a headache – is an unwelcome start to the day for many. Morning headaches are not proof of sleep disorders but addressing sleep disorders often makes the headaches fade away. The prevalence of migraine headaches is also higher in people with sleep disorders, and the frequency of the migraines tends to decline when sleep disorders are cleared up. Only 5% of people with brain tumors have morning headaches

Snoring and apnea is associated with headahce. A study from Turkey reports much higher rates of morning headaches among apnea sufferers, but found 90% of those who had headaches found relief is they used CPAP machines during the night.

The most common type of head is called tension headache. Do sleep troubles aggravate tension-type headache?: A Japanese investigation asked that very question and found that yes, they do, although the question is too broad. Doctors should look deeper into the specific sleep disorder, as headaches are too common a symptom to be of much use in establishing a definitive treatment.

Doctors faced with recalcitrant headache cases are advised to look at sleep factors when considering what triggers headaches. The triggers for headaches are so variable thatit is not possible to enumerate possible factors (which could be a range of things related to sleep hygiene and co-morbid conditions.)

The rare forms of headache chronic paroxysmal hemicrania and cluster headaches are related to REM .Cluster headache attacks can start while the patient is asleep, usually during REM sleep. Chronic paroxysmal hemicrania is sometimes called "REM sleep-locked headache”

Sleep and trigeminal pain processing share several common pathway according to German researchers. Trigeminal neuralgia is the chronic pain condition in the face – or more specifically the trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation from your face to your brain. A recent German study claims that the hypothalamus area of the brain is involved in both headache and sleeo and that the neurone there are "probably the anatomic and physiological link between headache and sleep."