Reference programme: diagnosis and treatment of headache disorders and facial pain. Danish Headache Society, 3rd edition, 2020

Table 1 The most important types of headache and facial pain

Type	Probable diagnosis	Description
Acute headache	Subarachnoid haemorrhage, and others.	Acute onset, severe headache +/− neurological symptoms
Episodic Headache	Migraine +/− aura	Pulsating headache, aggravation by physical activity with nausea, phono- and photophobia
	Tension-type headache	Pressure headache without associated symptoms
	Cluster headache and others	Unilateral headache with ipsilateral autonomic facial symptoms
	Trigeminal neuralgia	Seconds lasting unilateral severe
Chronic headache	Chronic tension-type headache	Pressure headache without associated symptoms or medication overuse headache
	Medication-overuse headache	Use of acute pain medication more than 10–15 days per month
	Intracranial hypertension, incl. Brain tumor headache	Frequent and increasing headache with nausea and neurological symptoms

The individual patient can suffer from different types of headache and facial pain. There are several headache disorders, which are secondary to other diseases. Some of these secondary headaches are serious, but generally these are rare and less than 1% of all headache patients in primary care (see section “Secondary headaches”)

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