KARACHI: President Pakistan Headache Society Dr. Aziz Sonawalla has said headache is one of the most common complaints seen by doctors and needs full attention as the causes may be deep- rooted.

He said this while addressing second National Headache Conference on Saturday at Najumuddin Auditorium Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), organized by Pakistan Headache Society (PHS).

He said 20 per cent of all patients coming to the neurologists have headaches while 15 to 20 per cent of all patients coming to the family physician too, have headaches as the main complaint. It is estimated that 90 per cent of the population will have at least one headache within a year.

Given the enormity of the problem, it is apparent that study of headache disorders is not given the attention that is due, Dr. Sonawalla said. He said patient with headaches were not taken seriously at times; because headaches present only with symptoms and there are no signs so patients are considered to be merely complaining without reason.

It is quite normal that most patients prefer to suffer in silence, especially in a conservative society like ours, hence it is even more imperative the study of headache disorders be given its due importance in the medical curriculum, and greater headache awareness be created in the population, he said.

The magnitude of the problem can be gauged by the fact that migraine headaches alone involve 10 per cent of the population in any given society .Tension Type Headaches occur in at least 30 per cent of the population .Although we do not have our statistics, the prevalence is likely to be similar.

Fortunately, contrary to the patients apprehensions, most headache disorders are of a non serious nature, although headaches such as migraines and cluster headaches can be debilitating serious causes account for only 0.1 per cent of all headaches, Dr. Sonawalla said.

Prof Shaukat Ali, Chairman Scientific Committee and Head Department of Neurology JPMC, said this conference is being held at a time when there is big leap taking place not only in the field of neurology but also in the history of Pakistan.

The neurology community is not only growing in numbers but awareness about the neurological ailment is also increasing day by day; he also said and added this type of activity is extremely valuable for Neurologist, internist and budding physicians in order to keep abreast of current knowledge.

Dr. Farrukh S. Khan said the percentages of the adult population with an active headache disorder are 46 per cent for headache in general, 11 per cent for migraine, 42 per cent for tension type headache and 3 per cent for chronic daily headache.

According to the World Health Organization’s ranking of causes of disability, headache is among the 10 most disabling conditions for the two genders, and among five most disabling for women. Prof Dr .M Iqbal Afridi Head Dept. of Psychiatry, JPMC said headaches are common presentation in clinical practice. The underlying cause may be related to various medical disciplines. Variety of illnesses such as hypertension, sinusitis, neurological, neurosurgical and ophthalmological problems may cause headache besides psychiatric disorders.

Symptomatic treatment of headache must not precede evolution of its cause. It has been observed that 90% of individuals have a least one headache ,40 per cent of individuals suffer from severe disabling headache annually, four per cent patients presenting to the ER with headache are diagnosed to have a serious underlying disorder.

The headaches account for 8 million doctors visits, most people with a headache use nonprescription pain relievers to treat their symptoms.