Headaches Associated with Seizure: A Prospective Comparative Cohort Study

The purpose of the present study is to examine the frequency of headaches based on their relationship with seizures in epileptic patients as well as types of these headaches, and their clinical characteristics.

100 patients with epilepsy (60 female, 40 male), who applied to the epilepsy outpatient clinic of Faculty of Medicine of Uludağ University, were included in the study after accepting their consent forms. Patients with symptomatic epilepsy, secondary headaches and mental retardation were excluded from the study. Patients with epilepsy were divided into two groups as the patients with or without headaches associated with seizure. In addition, according to their temporal relationships with seizures, headaches were grouped as preictal, ictal and postictal headaches and the characteristics of headaches associated with seizure were examined and the patients with and without headache associated with seizure were compared in terms of their demographic and clinical features.

In this study, the prevalence of headache associated with seizure was found as 42%. Headaches associated with seizure were more frequent in the postictal period and they were mostly characterized as migraine-like headache. According to the seizure periods, 22 (52.3%) of the patients experienced pain during every seizure period. It was determined that preictal headache was frequently migraine-like compared to postictal headache and this headache was more frequently accompanied by aura.

Headache and epilepsy are the most frequent paroxysmal neurological conditions. However, because the symptoms of epilepsy are more remarkable, and its clinical presentation has a more dramatic picture, additional neurological conditions may be overlooked. Since both epilepsy and headache symptoms decrease the quality of life, it is important to treat both conditions. Examination of the correlation between these two situations can guide the physicians for selecting the treatment type, as well as helping them to improve the quality of life.