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Acute Headache

Emergency

Acute headache is common, but the job is to catch subarachnoid haemorrhage, meningitis, raised intracranial pressure, temporal arteritis, and secondary causes without over-calling benign primary headache syndromes.

Red flags

  • Thunderclap onset or worst-ever headache
  • Fever, meningism, rash, or immunosuppression
  • Focal neurology, seizure, altered consciousness, or papilloedema
  • New headache in pregnancy, anticoagulation, cancer, or age >50

Common causes to keep in the differential

Subarachnoid haemorrhage
Meningitis / encephalitis
Migraine
Tension-type headache
Medication-overuse headache
Raised ICP / intracranial mass / cerebral venous thrombosis

Linked MedVellum pathways

Acute headache

Emergency

Structured acute headache workup and emergency red flags.

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Migraine headache

Common

Migraine patterns, treatment, and prevention.

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Tension headache

Common

Common benign headache patterns and differentials.

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Medication-overuse headache

Common

Recognize rebound headache and withdrawal strategy.

Open topic

Next practical steps

  • Use the linked topics to split dangerous secondary headaches from common primary syndromes.
  • Escalate fast for thunderclap headache, fever with meningism, or focal neurological deficit.

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Use MedVellum search when the presentation is mixed, atypical, or you need a broader differential before narrowing into a topic page.

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