What Does a Headache Behind Your Eyes Mean?
fizkes / Getty Images
Medically reviewed by Brigid Dwyer, MD
Headaches can cause pain in different parts of the head, including behind your eyes. Whether a headache causes you pain behind your eyes can depend on what type of headache you have.
A headache behind your eyes can be due to headaches caused by common reasons like migraine or a sinus infection. Other times, a headache behind your eye can be caused by more severe or rarer types of headaches.
Knowing what's causing a headache behind your eyes can help you better treat the pain—and prevent it from happening in the future.
What Causes Headaches Behind the Eyes?
Different types of headaches can cause you to have a headache behind your eyes. It is unclear what exactly causes headaches. One aspect believed to be involved is the delivery of pain messages through the trigeminal nerve. This is a nerve that has three branches throughout your head. One of the branches involves your eyes.
Here are the types of headaches that could be causing the headache behind your eyes:
Tension-Type Headache
Tension-type headaches are the most common type of headache. They can develop when you experience physical or emotional stress. For instance, a tension-type headache can be caused by anxiety, depression, intense physical work, or lack of sleep or proper nutrition.
Most times, a tension-type headache will start at your forehead or around the eyes and then spread throughout the head.
Tension-type headaches can be episodic or chronic. Episodic tension-type headaches happen 10-15 days a month and can last anywhere from 30 minutes to two days. The pain caused in an episodic tension-type headache usually increases with headache frequency. Chronic tension-type headaches happen more than 15 days over a period of three months.
Digital Eye Strain
A tension-type headache caused by digital eye strain is known to particularly affect behind the eyes.
Your eyes can get tired from prolonged periods of intensely looking at screens like computers, phones, or tablets. It's a common issue, with 50% of computer users estimated to experience digital eye strain.
Besides a headache behind the eyes, digital eye strain can cause symptoms like blurry vision when looking at a screen, dry eyes, and difficulty focusing your eyes after looking at a screen.
Migraine Headache
Migraine is a condition that causes severe, recurring headaches often on one side of your head. Besides behind one of their eyes, people with migraine might also feel pain behind one ear or in one of their temples.
Besides headache, you may also experience nausea, weakness, and sensitivity to light and sounds. A migraine can last anywhere from 4-72 hours.
Around 12% of Americans experience migraines on a regular basis. What causes a migraine varies person to person. Research suggests that there might be a genetic component tied to having migraine.
Some of the major triggers for migraine include:
Stress or anxiety
Bright or flashing lights
Loud noises or strong smells
Sudden changes in weather or environment
Too much physical activity
Tobacco or alcohol
Migraine headaches usually happen in the mornings. Some people experience migraines in patterns, such as before their period or after a particularly tiring physical or mental activity.
Sinus Headache
Your sinuses are empty passages in the skull, connected to the nasal cavity, that allow for the movement of air and the drainage of mucus. You have sinuses behind your eyes, as well as in each cheekbone, behind the bridge of the nose, and in the forehead.
When these sinuses become inflamed, you have what is known as a sinus infection, or sinusitis. This inflammation can be caused by allergies or an infection like the common cold. Some people can experience chronic sinusitis.
The inflammation causes swelling and fluid buildup. This can not only make it hard to breathe through your nose, but also cause you pain behind the eyes. You may also experience pain in the forehead and jaw.
Other symptoms of sinusitis besides a sinus headache include a stuffy nose, coughing, and fever.
Cluster Headaches
A cluster headache is a rare, extremely painful type of headache. The type of headache gets its name because of how it happens—at the same time of day or night for several weeks.
Cluster headaches cause pain on one side of the head, including behind the eye. The pain can last anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours and generally starts two to three hours after you fall asleep.
Besides a sharp or steady pain, you might also experience teary eyes, swollen eyes, drooping eyelids, and nasal congestion.
Some research has indicated that cluster headaches are related to the sudden release of histamine, a chemical in your body responsible for allergic responses, in the trigeminal nerve.
Paroxysmal Hemicrania
Paroxysmal hemicrania is another rare form of headache. Its symptoms are very similar to those of cluster headaches, though a paroxysmal hemicrania does not last as long. While a cluster headache happens for 15 minutes to three hours, a paroxysmal hemicrania can last 2-45 minutes.
Paroxysmal hemicrania also happen more often than cluster headaches, typically affecting a person 5-40 times per day.
The pain from a paroxysmal hemicrania can be described as throbbing or piercing. Besides behind the eye, you may also feel the pain around the eye, on one side of the face, or at the back of your neck.
Stabbing Headache
The medical term for this uncommon type of headache is ophthalmodynia periodica. A stabbing headache might also be referred to as an ice-pick headache or jabs and jolts syndrome.
The headache gets its name because it causes you to have a stabbing pain, usually around your eye. The pain lasts 1-10 seconds.
People will usually start getting this type of headache when they are 45-50 years old. You may be more likely to experience them if you have other types of headaches, like migraine or cluster headaches. If you do get them, you may feel a stabbing headache anywhere from once a year to a few a day.
What Can Trigger a Headache Behind the Eyes?
Triggers for headaches behind the eyes will vary from person to person and will depend on the type of headache causing the pain behind your eyes. Generally, common headache triggers include:
Missed meals
Depression, anxiety, or stress
Alcohol and cigarette use
Inadequate sleep
Bright light or loud noises
Physical activity
Hot weather or hot baths
Foods high in nitrites, such as bacon and preserved meats
High altitudes (specific for migraines)
How Are Headaches Behind the Eyes Treated?
Headaches behind the eyes can be treated in several ways. You can try at-home remedies to help alleviate your symptoms, including the following:
Rest with your closed eyes in a quiet room
Put a cool towel or cloth on your forehead
Drink a lot of fluids
Some types of headaches might benefits from specific treatments. For example, natural treatments like vitamin B2 or magnesium may help with migraine. Cutting back on your screen time may help relieve a tension headache.
Over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription medicines may help with the headache pain behind your eyes. For instance, OTC pain relievers like Tylenol (acetaminophen) or Advil (ibuprofen) can bring relief. Prescribed pain medication may also help if the headaches are not chronic.
You may also be prescribed medications like Reyvow (lasmiditan) and Ubrelvy (ubrogepant), which are tablets that can help treat migraine in the short term. Meanwhile, Emgality (galcanezumab) injections can be used to treat cluster headaches.
Non-medication treatments could include relaxation techniques, biofeedback (gaining better control of how your body responds to things), and oxygen therapy.
The treatment plan a healthcare provider recommends for you will depend on what type of headache is causing the pain behind your eyes and how often you have the headaches.
When to Contact a Healthcare Provider
Most headaches that cause pain behind the eyes do not require medical attention and can be treated with at-home remedies, OTC medications, or lifestyle changes. However, sometimes a headache behind the eyes can indicate a more serious issue that requires intervention.
You should immediately contact your healthcare provider if you experience a headache with pain behind the eyes along with any of the following symptoms:
Stiff neck
Fever
Nausea or vomiting
Headache pain followed by confusion, double vision, and a loss of consciousness—especially if it's the first or worst headache you've every experienced
A headache that gets worse as the days go on
Severe weakness in any part of the body
Convulsions
How to Prevent Headaches Behind the Eyes
Preventing headaches behind the eyes can help you avoid symptoms that can affect your day-to day-life.
Keeping track of what triggers these types of headaches can help you identify specific activities or foods to avoid. Doing this can also help you identify if you are experiencing headaches at a specific time of day, which can be useful for you in taking measures to avoid them.
Stress management strategies like exercise, meditation, and a regular sleep schedule can be good preventative measures to avoid some headaches, like migraine.
Additionally, there are some medications and treatments that can help reduce the severity and frequency of some types of headaches. This includes Aimovig (enenmab) injections and Qulipta (atogepant) tablets, which can be used to help prevent migraine, as well as Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) injections, which can help prevent chronic migraine.
A Quick Review
You can experience a headache in virtually any part of your head, including behind your eyes. There are several reasons you may experience a headache behind the eyes. Some causes include common conditions like migraine headaches, sinus headaches, or tension-type headaches caused by digital eye strain. Other causes of headache behind the eyes are less common, like cluster headaches, paroxysmal hemicrania, and stabbing headaches.
How these types of headaches are triggered vary widely person to person. If you are experiencing headaches with pain behind the eyes, try to keep track of the events that lead up to the headaches to figure out what type of headache is causing them and to try to avoid them in the future.
Headaches with pain behind the eyes are usually resolved by resting or taking an over-the-counter medication. However, you should contact your healthcare provider if you are experiencing many headaches in a row or if you get these headaches alongside other symptoms like a stiff neck, fever, and confusion. These symptoms might be indicative of more serious conditions.
For more Health.com news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on Health.com.
