The Frequency of Fibromyalgia in Patients With Tension-Type Headache

Abstract

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a prevailing debilitating disorder that has been documented in patients with tension-type headache (TTH). The goal of this study was to determine the prevalence of fibromyalgia in TTH patients as well as the features of TTH patients with concomitant FM. One hundred patients with TTH and 100 apparently healthy subjects were conjoined in this study. The socio-demographic and headache characteristics of the patients were recorded. Patients with TTH had a considerably higher frequency of FM (34%) when compared to the controls (9%). TTH patients with FM had a substantially older mean age and a higher percentage of female participants than TTH patients without FM. Patients with comorbid fibromyalgia had greater headache frequency (P =0.02), headache intensity (P = 0.003), and higher scores on the HIT-6 (P = 0.004), GAD -7 (P =0.04), and PHQ-9 (p= 0.02), whereas there was no variation between the diseased patients and controls with regards to disease duration. In conclusion, there is a high frequency of FM in patients with TTH. Patients with coexistent FM and TTH tend to have more anxiety and depressive features, more severe headache, greater headache frequency, and when compared to people who do not have fibromyalgia, they are more likely to have a significant headache-related impairment.