Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Headache
Headaches
HP:0002315
What it means
Cephalgia, or pain sensed in various parts of the head, not confined to the area of distribution of any nerve.
Headache is one of the most common types of recurrent pain as well as one of the most frequent symptoms in neurology. In addition to occasional headaches, there are well-defined headache disorders that vary in incidence, prevalence and duration and can be divided into two broad categories. In secondary headache disorders, headaches are attributed to another condition, such as brain tumor or head injury; for the primary disorders the headache is not due to another condition.
In everyday care
Most people with this sign do not have a rare disease — it appears in common conditions far more often. These general reference pages cover the same topic:
Rare diseases that can present with this241
Very common80–99%
34- ABeta amyloidosis, Dutch type
- Angiostrongyliasis
- Arnold-Chiari malformation type I
- Autoimmune hemolytic anemia, warm type
- Babesiosis
- Cyclic neutropenia
- Dengue fever
- Drug-induced autoimmune hemolytic anemia
- Ectopic aldosterone-producing tumor
- Familial cerebral cavernous malformation
- Giant cell arteritis
- Hemangioblastoma
- Idiopathic intracranial hypertension
- L1 syndrome
- Lhermitte-Duclos disease
- Lujo hemorrhagic fever
- Malaria
- Manganese poisoning
- Morgagni-Stewart-Morel syndrome
- Nipah virus disease
- Papillary tumor of the pineal region
- Paroxysmal cold hemoglobinuria
- Pineoblastoma
- Pineocytoma
- Pituitary carcinoma
- Polycythemia vera
- Primary familial and congenital erythrocytosis
- Sneddon syndrome
- Solar urticaria
- Susac syndrome
- Thiamine-responsive megaloblastic anemia syndrome
- Typhoid
- Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease
- X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy
Common30–79%
46- 17q11microdeletion syndrome
- Acquired aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage
- Acquired methemoglobinemia
- Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
- Acute radiation syndrome
- Adenohypophysitis
- African trypanosomiasis
- American trypanosomiasis
- Amoebiasis due to free-living amoebae
- Aneurysm-osteoarthritis syndrome
- Arginine vasopressin deficiency
- Autoimmune limbic encephalitis
- Avian influenza
- Behçet disease
- Bilateral striopallidodentate calcinosis
- Boutonneuse fever
- Carnitine palmitoyl transferase II deficiency, severe infantile form
- Central neurocytoma
- Chikungunya
- Classic glucose transporter type 1 deficiency syndrome
- Craniofaciofrontodigital syndrome
- Craniopharyngioma
- Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever
- Diffuse cutaneous mastocytosis
- Eales disease
- Ebola hemorrhagic fever
- Encephalitis lethargica
- Episodic ataxia type 1
- Essential thrombocythemia
- Exercise-induced malignant hyperthermia
- Familial cold urticaria
- Familial thrombocytosis
- Febrile infection-related epilepsy syndrome
- Gangliocytoma
- Glioblastoma
- Glutaryl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency
- HELLP syndrome
- Hemorrhagic fever-renal syndrome
- Hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy
- Herpes simplex virus encephalitis
- High altitude pulmonary edema
- Hughes-Stovin syndrome
- Hydroxykynureninuria
- IgG4-related pachymeningitis
- Immune-mediated thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura
- Invasive meningococcal disease
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Tracking symptoms like this for someone? Eleplan keeps symptoms, diagnoses, medications and every specialist in one plan.
Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.