Trivia time: What’s one of the most painful headaches you can experience?
Ding! A primary stabbing headache.
Also known as an ice pick headache and idiopathic stabbing headache, these headaches come on suddenly and leave you feeling like, what the fuck just happened?
They can literally stop you in your tracks.
Like deer in the headlights kind of stop.
So what are primary stabbing headaches?
What are the criteria for getting diagnosed with them?
And what hat can you do to ease their severity?
Read the answers to those questions and learn more about primary stabbing headaches below.
This post contains affiliate link(s) at no extra cost to you. Please read my full disclosure policy for more details.
What are primary stabbing headaches?
Primary stabbing headaches are a type of headache that produces a “stabbing” sensation in the head.
You may feel them all over your head, including around or behind your eyes.
The pain may move (like you can actually feel electricity-like something moving) or repeat and jab you in the same spot.
For example, you might feel 10 tiny jabs over five seconds or 6 long electric bolts that last a few seconds each.
It’s the strangest sensation if you’ve never felt it before.
And it’s very confusing when it keeps happening and you have no clue why.
Oh yay, another new symptom, you think.
So why are they called primary stabbing headaches?
“Primary” means there is no cause for the pain, nor the result of an underlying condition. This type of head pain is uncommon and rare.
The temporal lobes (located on the sides of your head behind your ears) and behind the eyes are the most commonly affected areas with primary stabbing headaches.
Other names for primary stabbing headaches
Other names for primary stabbing headaches are icepick headaches and idiopathic stabbing headaches. Idiopathic means spontaneous, no-cause-known pain.
These headaches also go by needle-in-the-eye syndrome, jabs and jolts, and ophthalmodynia periodica.
Primary stabbing headaches are also a subtype of occipital neuralgia, which happens when the nerves underneath the scalp are inflamed or injured.
Occipital neuralgia can be primary or secondary (and remember that primary stabbing headaches have no underlying cause).
I used to call my stabs “head stabs,” which later progressed to “body stabs.”
What do primary stabbing headaches feel like?
If you experience these debilitating headaches, you may feel:
- what feels like electricity zapping you
- a moving ball of electricity
- a handful of rapid stabs at once, followed by a few in longer intervals or vice versa
- a bunch of small stabs and then many all at once
- stabs at the same time in different areas
- an ice pick slicing through your skull
- you can “feel” different parts of your head being “separated” by the “icepick”
These are based on my experience, but from what I read on Fibro groups and the like, so many others feel it too.
It’s a shame not enough people with Fibromyalgia know about primary stabbing headaches.
Primary stabbing headache criteria
According to the International Headache Society, the diagnostic criteria for primary stabbing headaches are:
- head pain occuring spontaneously as a single stab or series of stabs and fulfilling criteria b and c
- each stab lasts for up to a few seconds
- stabs recur with irregular frequency, from one to many per day
- no cranial autonomic symptoms (examples: nasal congestion or conjunctival injection)
- not better accounted for by another ichd-3 diagnosis
So to be diagnosed with primary stabbing headaches, you’ve got to meet criteria A, B, and C.
Your doctor will also rule out any cranial nerve issues or things like tumors, etc.
Why do I get stabbing headaches?
There is no underlying cause for primary stabbing headaches.
However, people with migraines are more likely to have primary stabbing headaches.
How long do stabbing headaches last?
Primary stabbing headaches may last up to a few seconds for a single jab. You may experience several jabs in succession, lasting even longer.
How long you may experience primary stabbing headaches as a symptom of Fibromyalgia is hard to tell. That’d be a good question for your doctor.
When I first started getting head stabs, I kept a tally log of them to show to my neurologist how many I was feeling a day.
Sometimes I would annotate where I got them on my head (like 5 stabs in left temporal lobe; 2 in back of head then 4 behind right eye).
I would count 70-100 throughout the day. I wish I could find a log to show you!
They stopped being so intense after a few years. Now I only get them every so often.
How to manage/ease stabbing headaches
No studies have been done to determine if lifestyle changes ease primary stabbing headache pain.
However, you can try a few things to help manage them using common sense and a mixture of Western and Eastern medicine.
1. Sleep
Sleep helps the mind escape from pain. If you have Fibromyalgia, you could teach a class on this (if you had the energy, of course).
Because if you’re asleep, you can’t feel what the awake mind feels.
I like to wear a sleep mask when I go to bed.
The one I use I got off Amazon by Unimi. This one is similar.
2. Drink water
Hydrate yourself and you may find that your headache symptoms improve.
Because when you’re dehydrated, the pain receptors lining your brain become stimulated, leading to a headache.
3. Try melatonin
Reminder that I’m not a doctor, and it’s always a good idea to consult your doctor before trying something new in the health department.
That being said, melatonin may help you sleep and get relief from your headaches.
I found one case study with a 7 year old that had stabbing headaches. He took melatonin for relief and it made his symptoms go away.
That sounds too easy…doesn’t it?
The study concluded that melatonin may be an “innovative, effective, and safe therapeutic alternative” to treat primary stabbing headaches – in children.
However, research shows that melatonin does help with headaches.
One study on adults with migraines reports that melatonin reduces the frequency, duration, and intensity of migraine attacks.
The report also found that melatonin was no more effective than commonly prescribed meds used to treat migraines, like amitriptyline. Oh.
Bottom line – if you prefer headache treatment without prescriptions, it may be worth asking your doctor about melatonin.
3. Acupuncture
Another way to find relief from your primary stabbing headaches is to do acupuncture.
Acupuncture eases your pain perception by altering and regulating your body’s pain signals and pathways. The ancient practice also encourages the release of endorphins, which are natural painkillers in the body.
I did acupuncture for several years when had stabs and found it helpful.
4. Medication
According to the National Institute of Health, medications that may be effective in treating primary stabbing headaches are:
- Indomethacin
- Gabapentin
- Celecoxib
I remember I first took topiramate (Topamax) to treat my headaches, then eventually added indomethacin. They worked a bit, but weren’t fun…
Again, always consult your doctor over taking information from a non-doctor blog post (like this one).
If you’re dealing with scalp pain in addition to stabbing headaches, read this post next:
Your takeaway
Primary stabbing headaches are incredibly painful, brief, and confusing.
They feel like electrified jabs and jolts.
They have no known cause, and you’re more likely to get them if you suffer from migraines.
What’s your experience with primary stabbing headaches?
