For many years, folks suffering from migraines had to deal with the pain, nausea and interruption to their daily lives because no effective treatment was available. Over the counter medications just did not do anything for them. In the United States alone, more than 28 million suffer from migraines — which translates to a high amount of time lost for work, social activities and daily routines. After some time spent on research and testing, a class of drugs known as triptans were approved that offered effective migraine headache relief.

Every adult has experienced a headache at some point. However, headaches vary greatly in frequency and severity. Most people can self-diagnose their own headaches and often turn to over-the-counter medications to help relieve the pain. However, doctors do not have any set of tests to diagnose headache types and causes. Instead, they mostly rely on the description that patients give them, and typically, the descriptions of the symptoms of headache pains vary wildly.

There are plenty of different types of headache symptoms that people have to contend with. Since there are so many different types, the symptoms vary from one extreme to the other.

Tension headaches are the most common type of headaches experienced by many. Tension headaches result from the tightening of muscles in the back, neck, shoulders and face.

Migraines, on the other hand, affect about 6% of men and 13% of women. Compared to tension headaches, migraines can be much more intense and last longer.