What is Migraine?

For most people migraine is a great deal more than just a headache. It can be a debilitating condition which has a huge impact on the quality of life of sufferers and their families.

Migraine is a complex and individual condition and it is important to persevere until you find the right treatment or combination of treatments which works for YOU.

If you have two or more of the following symptoms during an attack it is probable that you are suffering from migraine.

• Visual disturbances including blind spots, distorted vision, flashing lights or zig zag patterns. These symptoms, often called an aura are most often identified with migraine but in fact only about 10% of sufferers experience them. Migraine with aura is often called classical migraine.
• Intense throbbing headache, often on one side of the head only.
• Nausea and/or vomiting and/or diarrhoea.
• Increased sensitivity to light (photophobia)
• Increased sensitivity to sounds (phonophobia)
• Increased sensitivity to smells (osmophobia)
• You may also experience stiffness of the neck and shoulders, tingling or stiffness in the limbs, an inability to concentrate, difficulty in speaking, or in very rare cases paralysis or loss of consciousness.

A general rule of thumb is that if a headache and/or other associated symptoms prevent you from continuing with normal daily activities it could be a migraine.

Migraine attacks normally last between 3 and 72 hours and sufferers are usually quite well between attacks.

What Causes Migraine?

Migraine is believed to be caused by changes in the neurotransmitters and blood vessels in the brain but exactly what causes these changes is still a subject for research and debate. However certain factors have been identified which can trigger attacks in susceptible people:

• Stress (or sometimes the relief of stress).
• Lack of food or infrequent meals.
• Certain foods including products containing monosodium glutamate, caffeine, tyramine or alcohol.
• Overtiredness (physical or mental).
• Changing sleep patterns (e.g. weekend lie ins, sleeplessness or shift work).
• Hormonal factors (e.g. monthly periods, the contraceptive pill, HRT or the menopause).
• Extreme emotions (e.g. anger, grief etc.).
• Physical activity.
• Environmental factors (e.g. loud noise, bright or flickering lights, strong perfumes, hot stuffy atmosphere, VDUs etc.).
• Climatic conditions (e.g. strong winds, extreme heat or cold).

For most people there is not just one trigger but a combination of factors which individually can be tolerated but when several occur together a threshold is passed and an attack is triggered.

Although it can be helpful to identify and avoid your own personal trigger factors it is important not to become too obsessive.

Everyone has the capacity to suffer from migraine but for around 10% of the population, most probably because of a genetic predisposition, the threshold at which attacks occur is lower. It has been proven that there is no "migraine type" and sufferers are not, as is sometimes suggested, neurotic, perfectionist hypochondriacs who bring all their problems on themselves nor even, as has also been suggested, that they are super intelligent or extra sensitive. Although twice as many women as men suffer from migraine because of the involvement of hormonal factors, migraineurs come from all walks of life, all areas of the world and ethnic groups, and all social classes.

Is there a cure for migraine?

Although there is, as yet, no miracle cure for migraine it is possible to bring your condition under control There are now a wide range of treatments available which can be very effective but migraine is a complex condition and a treatment which is successful for one patient may have no effect on another.

Many people treat their migraine with simple pain killers purchased from the chemist. These can be very effective, especially if taken very early in the attack. It is important to take pain killers quickly as, during an attack, gastric stasis can occur and medication cannot then be absorbed from the gut into the blood stream. Pain killers taken in soluble form or tablets taken with a sweet fizzy drink can start to work more quickly. For sufferers who experience nausea and vomiting painkillers combined with an anti-sickness ingredient can be helpful.