How Chronic Head Pain Affects your Health

Chronic head pain can be a frustrating and overwhelming health issue to deal with. Whether your pain is relatively recent or you’ve been dealing with it for many years, head pain causes a variety of issues that create a negative impact on your life. Chronic head pain leads to fatigue, and in turn, fatigue can significantly impact your ability to sleep soundly and your overall health.

There are many reasons one may experience chronic head pain—understanding the causes of chronic head pain can help you understand its effects and how to alleviate your pain and get a good night of sleep.

Chronic Migraines: Chronic migraines are a common source of chronic head pain. Even after a migraine has subsided, you may experience pain, which can make the pain even more frustrating. 

Teeth Grinding: Grinding your teeth not only requires a great deal of pressure to accomplish but also causes pain because of the friction and vibrations that occur when you grind your teeth. If you grind your teeth frequently, you may develop chronic head pain.

Teeth Clenching: Along with grinding, clenching your teeth can lead to chronic head pain. As with teeth clenching, your jaw uses a massive amount of pressure to clench your teeth.

TMD: Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD) can be a painful and frustrating medical issue that can lead to chronic head pain. Symptoms include a popping noise in your jaw when you open your mouth or chew, pain in your jaw, earaches, and sore teeth.

Chronic head pain will disrupt your routines, overall health, and sleep patterns from a variety of rippling effects:

Fatigue: Fatigue is one of the biggest effects of chronic head pain. When your head hurts, it’s hard to go to sleep. In fact, you may even tense other muscles in your body because of the head pain preventing you from relaxing enough to get a good night of sleep. Fatigue can also contribute to the other effects that come from chronic head pain.

Irritability, Depression, Anxiety: When you’re in pain and tired, you may be more likely to experience irritability as well as depression or anxiety.

Body Pain: Some people deal with chronic pain by tensing other muscles, such as their necks and shoulders. When that happens, you can cause pain in other parts of your body. You may not have chronic pain in these other areas but tensing your muscles for a prolonged time can lead to pain and other medical problems.