VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 15 (UPI) -- Researchers from the Mayo Clinic say migraine headaches are often misdiagnosed as sinus headaches by doctors and sufferers alike.
"Most folks who come into the clinic with a self-diagnosed or physician-diagnosed sinus headache actually don't have sinus headache at all," said lead researcher Dr. Eric Eross, an associate consultant in neurology from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Eross presented the findings at the American Headache Society annual meeting last week in Vancouver, British Columbia, HealthDailyNews said Tuesday.
In their study, Eross and his colleagues examined 100 people who answered a newspaper ad seeking people who thought they had sinus headaches. Each patient had an extensive evaluation and imaging tests.
The researchers found 63 percent were actually suffering from migraines, 23 percent had probable migraines and 9 percent had headaches that couldn't be classified. The patients with unclassified headaches probably have sinus headache, Eross said.
In addition, 3 percent had headaches secondary to a sinus infection, 1 percent had cluster headaches and 1 percent had hemicrania continua, a rare type of chronic headache, he said.
