HEADACHES AS SYMPTOMS OF OTHER MEDICAL CONDITIONS: MENINGITIS
Headaches regularly accompany meningitis. Meningitis means an inflammation of the meninges, the tissue covering the brain. This inflammation usually results from infection, but other causes exist as well. This section will discuss meningitis caused by infection.
When meningitis is caused by a simple virus, the condition is not usually serious. Viral meningitis is often part of a generalized viral infection, like a cold, although most colds do not cause significant involvement of the brain or its covering. Exactly why some viral infections cause meningitis is not known.
Viral meningitis usually brings with it a severe headache and an uncomfortable sensitivity to light called photophobia. Most patients also experience a very stiff neck. The stiff neck occurs because the meninges that surround the spinal cord in the neck region are inflamed.
A headache brought on by viral meningitis usually lasts only a few days, but it can be very painful and relief may require very strong analgesics. The viral infection responsible for the meningitis does not usually require antibiotics and in most cases will improve in a week or so.
Viral infections cannot usually be treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics are used when bacteria, like streptococcus (a “strep” infection ) or staphylococcus (a “staph” infection) are the cause of the illness. For the most part, the body’s own defenses are able to fight off viral infections.
Meningitis produced by a bacterial infection also causes headache and stiff neck, but unlike its viral counterpart, bacterial meningitis is a serious and life-threatening condition that requires prompt antibiotic therapy. Bacterial meningitis, often referred to as “spinal meningitis,” is associated with many serious neurological problems. At the time the stiff neck and headache first appear, however, the victim may not seem particularly ill, but hours later coma may occur.
Stiff neck and headache do not always indicate the presence of meningitis. A strained neck, cervical arthritis, or the overall achiness and stiffness accompanying colds that do not invade the nervous system may also produce headache and stiffness of the neck. Sometimes, tumors in the neck or the back of the brain can cause similar symptoms. A prompt medical evaluation of all cases of stiff neck is obviously very important.
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