Headache when sleeping at night

Sleep is very important for everyone. If you lack sleep for a long time, it will seriously affect your health. Headaches when sleeping are very common in life. There are many reasons for headaches. If you don’t treat it in time, it will affect your rest. If you don’t rest well, it will affect your daily life and normal work the next day. What is the reason for headaches when you sleep at night?

What causes headaches when sleeping at night?

There are many causes of headaches, including cervical spondylosis, unreasonable work and rest arrangements, poor sleep, symptoms of autonomic nervous system dysfunction, and unstable blood pressure and anemia.

What causes headaches?

1. Functional or psychiatric illness

The muscles of the forehead, temporal, neck, and back of the neck may contract due to mental factors, occupation, chronic inflammation, traumatic strain, and adjacent tissue lesions, causing tension headaches and common clinical neurotic headaches.

2. Sinus infection or obstruction

For example, the skin in the corresponding areas of maxillary sinus and frontal sinusitis may be tender, ethmoid sinusitis and sphenoid sinusitis are limited to the deep midline below the root of the nose, and sphenoid sinus lesions may sometimes cause pain at the top. It may be due to pressure changes and irritation of the pain-sensitive sinus walls. The pain of ethmoid sinusitis is most severe when waking up in the morning. It will gradually ease after standing up and be relieved after drainage. Bending over may aggravate the pain due to changes in pressure.

Sinus pain has two obvious characteristics: pulsating pain can be alleviated or eliminated by pressing the ipsilateral carotid artery, and there may be periodic recurrence and relief, depending on the drainage status of the sinuses. Sympathomimetic drugs such as norethindrone hydrochloride. Epinephrine can reduce swelling and congestion and relieve pain, but even if the secretions disappear, the pain will still exist. It may be due to the occlusion of the passage and the absorption of air in the sinus cavity, causing vacuum sinus headache. The headache will improve after ventilation returns to normal.

3. Intracranial lesions

Intracranial space-occupying lesions such as brain tumors, cerebral hemorrhage, subarachnoid hemorrhage, cerebral edema, meningitis, brain abscess and intracranial hypertension can cause headaches when the lesions expand or pull on cerebral blood vessels and dura mater structures at the base of the brain, usually before the intracranial pressure increases. Bilateral occipital and/or frontal fluctuating headaches in patients with increased intracranial pressure are caused by anterior traction on the blood vessels and dura mater.

4. High dilatation of intracranial and extracranial arteries and involvement of surrounding structures

It can cause headaches, such as migraine, fever, hypoxia, hypoglycemia, carbon monoxide poisoning, use of vasodilators and after a major epileptic seizure. Temporal arteritis, occipital arteritis, various vasculitis and sinusitis can also cause severe persistent headaches. The pain is localized at first and then becomes diffuse.

Shaking the head can intensify the pulsation of the meningeal blood vessels, stimulate the pain structures around the base of the brain, and intensify the pain. Pheochromocytoma, malignant hypertension, sexual activity, and ophthalmic monoamine oxidase inhibitors are associated with severe, throbbing headaches on both sides of the head and are associated with extremely high blood pressure. Cough pain or exertion headache is also caused by intracranial vasodilation, which is usually benign and may also be related to intracranial lesions such as pheochromocytoma.

5. Headache caused by meningeal irritation

Headaches caused by irritation of the meninges due to infection or bleeding are often acute in onset, severe, regionally generalized, deep in the location, persistent, and accompanied by neck stiffness, which is particularly obvious when the neck is bent forward. It is generally believed to be caused by increased intracranial pressure, which is partially relieved after releasing cerebrospinal fluid. In addition, meningeal vasodilation and inflammation and chemical substances that stimulate the pain sensation of the meninges and large blood vessels may be important factors in causing headaches and neck stiffness. For example, in chemical meningitis caused by sudden rupture of an epidermoid cyst, the cerebrospinal fluid pressure is basically normal, but the headache is abnormally severe.