Seizure-related headache in patients with epilepsy.

We investigated the type and frequency of interictal primary headache and peri-ictal headache in 109 patients with partial-onset and 26 patients with generalized onset seizures in this study. Interictal headaches were present in 50 (40.7%) of 135 patients. Comparing the interictal headache on the basis of seizure type, we couldn't find any significant difference between the seizure groups. Seventy-nine (58.51%) patients had peri-ictal headache. Eleven of these patients had pre-ictal headache (PriH), three of all had ictal headache and, 56 of these had post-ictal headache (PoiH). PriH and PoiH were more frequently encountered before and after secondary generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS) compared to other seizure groups. The type of pain in PoiH was 'throbbing' in complex partial seizures and 'steady' in GTCS. Copyright 2002 BEA Trading Ltd.