The brain doesn't have its own pain receptors, so why do headaches hurt so much?
Headaches are extremely common and they can take many forms, ranging from mild to debilitating and lasting minutes to days. When your cranium is in pain, it's easy to think your brain tissue itself must be hurting. But that's not likely.
Headaches can stem from an underlying medical condition, for instance, swollen sinuses, low blood sugar or a head injury. But broadly speaking, most headaches arise due to"referred pain," meaning you feel the pain in a different place than where it's actually occurring, Dr. Charles Clarke , a neurologist and headache specialist at Vanderbilt Health in Tennessee, told Live Science. It's similar to how a herniated disk in your back can cause sciatica, a pain down your leg.
Migraines are another type of headache, although technically, headache is just one symptom of the neurological disorder. Migraine headaches can be felt in a variety of ways and places: deep pain, surface pain; the back, left or right of the head; or behind the eyes. What sets migraines apart, Clarke said, is their severity.
One possible explanation for migraine pain is that an electrical event in the brain stimulates the trigeminal nerve pathways and sets off an inflammatory reaction . The inflammation spreads through the dural blood vessels and the trigeminal nerve fibers send signals back to the brain stem . The inflammation then spreads to pain-sensitive meninges — protective tissue around the brain — triggering a headache.
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