Cephalgia is a medical term for what malady?

Cephalgia is a medical term for a headache, meaning pain or discomfort located in the head, face, or neck. The word is commonly used as a formal synonym for headache in medical writing.

The term comes from Greek roots: kephalē means “head,” while the suffix -algia means “pain.” Cephalgia describes a symptom rather than one single disease. Head pain can result from many different conditions, including tension-type headache, migraine, dehydration, lack of sleep, infection, medication overuse, sinus problems, or head injury.

A frequent mistake is treating cephalgia as another name specifically for migraine. Migraine is one distinct neurological headache disorder, often accompanied by nausea or sensitivity to light and sound, while cephalgia is a broader descriptive term. Medical classification systems recognize more than 150 types of primary and secondary headache disorders.

Cephalalgia can also appear in the name of Cephalalgia, the peer-reviewed journal published for the International Headache Society. In ordinary clinical language, however, the intended meaning is simply headache.