Holistic Health Articles and Research Related to Herbal Medicines, Foods and Phytochemicals : Migraine Headaches

Saturday 23 November 2013

Migraine Headaches - The Symptoms

Migraine headache is one most common headaches defined as condition of chronic neurological disorder of moderate to severe headaches, and nausea that usually develop gradually over 5–20 minutes and last for less than 60 minutes and affected over 15% of the population in US alone, as a result of the change in the brain and its surrounding blood vessels.

A. Symptoms
Since it is a chronic condition with recurrent attacks, pain is usual very intensive and divided into 4 possible phases(A1)
1. The prodrome
The prodrome symptoms happen in 40–60% of those with migraines is an occurrence of early symptoms indicate the start of a migraine headache attacks, including altered mood, irritability, depression or euphoria, fatigue, yawning, excessive sleepiness, craving for certain food, etc.. In the study of a total of 893 migraine patients (IHS 1.1-1.7) were evaluated at first visit. Prodrome frequency, duration, and characteristics were analyzed in the total migraine population IHS 1.1-1.7 and IHS 1.1-1.6 migraine conducted by Leslie Kelman MD, found that A total of 32.9% of IHS migraine 1.1-1.6 patients reported prodrome symptoms with an average of 9.42 hours. IHS 1.1-1.7 migraine reported 29.7% and 6.8 hours, respectively. The most commonest symptoms were tiredness, mood change, and gastrointestinal symptoms; all three of these symptoms were present together in 17% of the patients with prodrome. The duration of prodrome was less than 1 hour in 45.1%, 1-2 hours in 13.6%, 2-4 hours in 15.0%, 4-12 hours in 13.1%, and greater than 12 hours in 13.2%. IHS 1.1-1.7 patients showed similar findings.(A2)

2. The aura
The aura, happens to approximately 20 -40% Migraine sufferers. In general, the symptoms of comprised focal neurological phenomena appear gradually over five to 20 minutes and last fewer than 60 minutes. But in some cases, a sudden onset of severe bilateral facial pain radiating bilaterally into the medial cervical region after defecation. The pain was accompanied by scotomas in the right visual field and hypaesthesia in both upper limbs of that required medical attention.

3. The pain phase
The headache phase of the migraine attack usually begins within 60 minutes of the end of the aura phase. The pain of the headache is intense, throbbing from moderate to severe, may be bilateral or unilateral at the onset, and occur on one side or alternate sides from one attack to the next.

4. The postdrome
After the pain phase, 68% of the sufferers may experience the postdrome of which can be lasted for average of 24 hours, including tiredness (71.8%), head pain (33.1%), cognitive difficulties (11.7%), ‘hangover’ (10.7%), gastrointestinal symptoms (8.4%), mood change (6.8%), and weakness (6.2%) with commonest symptoms being tiredness and low-grade headache(A3).

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