Headaches: from the benign to the sinister

Patients commonly present to an optometrist on account of headache. These patients may be self-referred, but it is also common practice for GPs to advise their patients with headache to see an optician.

The vast majority of headaches are harmless, but the occasional patient is presenting with serious pathology and this is when the diagnosis should not be missed. An optometrist is uniquely equipped with the knowledge and with the instrumentation, which should allow no case with serious pathology to slip through.

Primary benign headaches with no underlying pathology account for the symptoms of 90 per cent of all headache sufferers. Secondary headaches are sinister and are accounted for by an underlying pathology, which includes potentially fatal conditions such as tumours, aneurysms, vascular diseases and systemic infections.