Headache in patients with epilepsy: A prospective incidence study

Abstract

High prevalence of headache has been reported in patients with refractory epilepsy in cross-sectional surveys based on retrospective recall. We conducted a prospective study to document the incidence of headache over a 3-month observation period in a cohort of 227 adult patients with less refractory epilepsy. The mean seizure frequency was 2.46 per month. Fifty (22%) patients reported to have had at least one headache episode, 45 (19.8%) had interictal headache, 11 (4.8%) had periictal headache, and 5 (2.2%) had both interictal and periictal headache. Forty-nine percent of the patients with headache took over-the-counter analgesics as acute treatment. The headache was rated to have made very..