Running cause my head to hurt !

[nefariousx]

Hi doc, I am suffering a huge pain at the lower left back of my head whenever I start running for a distance. But when I stopped the pain will go off and I feel nauseous. I also suffer from pain in the left gastric. I used to have great stamina in running but all this pain have caused me unable to run long distances anymore. Please advice!

[Dr. Sinuhe]

Thanks for your question.

Although judging by your message alone the most likely scenario is that you have a benign "exercise headache", a thorough medical history and a physical examination is needed and thus it is not up to me to determine the cause of your symptoms.

Exercise headaches have no underlying cause and therefore, although annoying, exercise headaches aren't serious. Proper diagnosis is important, however. Sometimes (according to one study, about 10% of) headaches after exercise are due to a serious underlying cause.

Therefore, depending on your medical history, symptoms, their duration, your age and the results of physical exam, to be on the safe side, your doctor may recommend a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to rule out serious underlying causes. The fact that you have nausea as well as headache would probably cause me to recommend MRI.

If a diagnosis of benign exercise headache is confirmed, it is good to know that symptoms often disappear on their own. If acute treatment is needed, normmal nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin and ibuprofen, may be effective and sometimes medication indomethacin is used. If the headaches have migraine characteristics, medication such as a triptan may be helpful.


Hope this helps.

Dr. Sinuhe