Know About Migraine

Migraine is a type of primary headache. Primary headache is the type of headache, where headache and associated symptoms occur in the absence of any exogenous cause. Some examples of primary headache are migraine headache, tension-type headache, and cluster headache. Migraine is a very common clinical problem which afflicts approximately 15% of women and 6% of men. Migraine is the second most common cause of headache. Migraine headache is episodic in nature and is associated with certain features such as sensitivity to light, sound, or movement. Light, sound, movements are the activating factors of migraine and these are known as activators (also known as “triggers”). The specialty of migraine is its possibility of identification by a layman by its activators or “triggers”.

Symptoms of migraine headache:

The most important symptom of migraine headache is one sided headache. The following are the symptoms of migraine headache (the approximately percentage of migraine headache patients who suffer from the symptoms are given in brackets):

  1. Nausea (87%)
  2. Photophobia (82%),
  3. Lightheadedness (72%),
  4. Scalp tenderness or pain on pressure (65%),
  5. Vomiting (56%), visual disturbances (36%),
  6. Paresthesia or reduced pain sensation (33%),
  7. Vertigo (33%), diarrhea (16%),
  8. Alteration of consciousness like syncope (10%), seizure (4%), state of confusion (4%) etc.

The brain of a migraine patient is very sensitive to certain stimuli like sensory stimuli and environment stimuli and migraine prone patients can not habituate easily. The sensitiveness is more in women, particularly during menstrual cycle.

Factors that can trigger migraine headache:

Migraine headache can be initiated or amplified by various factors (triggers) like glare or bright lights, sounds, hunger, excess stress (including excessive physical exertion), stormy weather or even barometric pressure changes, hormonal fluctuations (especially during menstrual cycles in females), lack of sleep or excess of sleep, alcohol or other chemical stimulation etc.