title: Sleep deprivation headache.
abstract: Headaches due to insufficient or interrupted sleep are generally labelled "tension headaches" of psychogenic origin. In 25 healthy subjects, variable amounts of sleep loss (1-3 h for 1-3 nights) caused headaches lasting from 1 h to all day. The headache was most frequently a dull ache, a heaviness or a pressure sensation felt in the forehead and/or at the vertex. Simple analgesics, purchaseable without a doctor's prescription, completely or markedly reduced the head pain in 20-60 min. Headaches due to insufficient sleep differ from tension headaches in their site, duration and response to analgesics. Assuming that pain implies a regional dysfunction, headaches caused by sleep loss provide support for the notion that sleep has a restorative function in the brain.
authors: National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London.
authors: J N
authors: JN
authors: Blau
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000700:Analgesics / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000700:Analgesics