Airplane headache – an underestimated problem?

Kulczyński Marcin, Marciniec Michał, Sapko Klaudia, Papuć Ewa, Rejdak Konrad. Airplane headache – an underestimated problem? Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2018;8(7):357-363. eISNN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1319029

http://ojs.ukw.edu.pl/index.php/johs/article/view/5659

https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/871753

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© The Authors 2018;

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Received: 02.06.2018. Revised: 18.06.2018. Accepted: 22.07.2018.

Airplane headache – an underestimated problem?

Marcin Kulczyński¹, Michał Marciniec², Klaudia Sapko^2*, Ewa Papuć¹, Konrad Rejdak¹

¹Chair and Department of Neurology, Medical University of Lublin, Poland

²Department of Neurology, Independent Public Clinical Hospital No. 4 in Lublin, Poland

*Corresponding author:

Klaudia Sapko

ul. K. Jaczewskiego 8

20-954 Lublin, Poland

tel. +48817244718

e-mail: klaudia.sapko@gmail.com

Abstract

The airplane headache is an incident of severe, clinically stereotypical pain during ascent or descent of an airplane. The entity is considered rare; however growing number of passengers in air transport results in better recognition of the problem. The airplane headache typically lasts less than 30 minutes and is unilateral, most often in fronto-orbital region and is connected with take-off or (more often) landing of the aircraft. The most important causative factor is sinus barotrauma attributed to changes in air pressure in passenger airliners during different phases of flight. So far there are only single cases or case series described in the literature. However, the problem can affect even a few percent of airline passengers. The condition is rare among children. The most effective treatment are triptans, but naproxen, paracetamol and nasal decongestants may play an important role either. There is an urgent need to conduct more researches on epidemiology, pathogenesis and treatment of the headache attributed to airplane travel.

Key words

Headache; Aircraft; Triptans; Barotrauma