Migraine Headache
In the United States, it is estimated
that 17.6 percent of women and 5.7 percent of men have one or
more migraine headaches a year, with half of all the 8.7
million women who suffer from mild-to-moderate migraine
saying they have more than one migraine each
month.
Reports of migraine in the United States
have increased dramatically since 1980, when only 25.8 people
per 1,000 suffered from them. By 1989, that number had risen
to the record level of 41 people per 1,000. Most of this
increase was in people less than 45 years old, and the jump
was greater among women than men.
The characteristic that usually
distinguishes migraine from other types of headache is its
unilateral quality. Writings from as early as the second
century A.D. point to a syndrome affecting only one side of
the head.
Although migraine can set in at any time
of life, the most common age range for onset is from 10 to 30
years. After an initial attack, migraine may stay in
remission for years to decades.
It is highly likely that there is a
genetic factor involved in migraine headache. Ninety percent
of migraine sufferers can identify a parent, aunt or uncle,
or grandparent with migraine. Family members also commonly
suffer from other types of headaches.
TENSION AND MIGRAINE:
ARE THEY THE SAME?
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Scientists used to believe that
muscle contractions caused tension headache and that
constriction and dilation of blood vessels in the head
caused migraine. They also thought that they were two
separate disorders. New evidence is leading researchers
to conclude that headache occurs on a continuum, that is,
a continuous progression, with one type leading to the
other. Tension headache is on one end and migraine on the
other. This continuum means that people who usually
suffer from tension headache could sometimes experience
migraine-like symptoms, while people who usually suffer
from migraine could sometimes experience tension headache
type symptoms. Daily chronic headache falls in between
the two types. Scientists are still not sure, however,
whether the same biological mechanisms cause each of
these types of headache.
In the simplest diagnostic model,
you have:
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Tension headache if the pain is mild and
spreads in a band across your head;
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Common migraine when the pain becomes more
severe and throbbing, usually on one side of your
head (unilateral);
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Classic migraine when nausea, vomiting or
sensitivity to light or sound accompany the severe,
throbbing, unilateral pain;
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Daily chronic headache when you have some
aspects of both tension and migraine
headaches.
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Migraine can be classified as either
classic or
common. About 20 percent of migraine sufferers have
the classic variety, which is distinguished by an aura
a peculiar sensation preceding the appearance of more
definite symptoms. It can range from visual distur-bances, to
bizarre alterations in consciousness called the “Alice
in Wonderland phenomenon,” to loss of consciousness
altogether.
Visual disturbances, the most common
symptom of classic migraine, can include temporary blindness,
blurred vision, flashing lights or dots, “floating”
images, and glittering zigzag lines. Less common symptoms
include alterations in the perception of shapes, colors,
sizes, and body image and perhaps alterations in smells and
tastes.
Other features of the classic migraine
aura include gastrointestinal distress like nausea and
vomiting (though people with common migraine can experience
this, too). Diarrhea, lack of appetite, abdominal cramping,
dizziness, anxiety, depression, mental cloudiness,
irritability, and food cravings—especially for sweets
and chocolate—can occur.
The pain from both classic and common
migraine is usually in the front of the head, in the eye or
temple region. It is most often a throbbing pain that lasts
for less than a day in two-thirds of people with migraine.
Attacks that last three or four days are not uncommon,
however.
Migraine can be confused with other
diseases. Before a diagnosis can be made, your doctor will
consider other possible causes including stroke, low blood
sugar, organ malfunction such as kidney disease, aneurysms
(ballooned blood vessels), epilepsy, congenital malformations
of blood vessels, tumors, excessive pressure in the eyes,
excessive amounts of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain,
connective tissue disease, and some forms of heart
disease.
Next :
Type of Headaches continued-
Tension Headaches
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