Psychosomatic Disease: Migraines and Headaches
Cynthia Dume
PSYC 3070 – Stress Management
Mindy Ma
Nova Southeastern University
December 7, 2014
Introduction
Have you ever experienced a migraine or headache when you were stressed or upset? You often experience these migraines or headaches and repeated dose of medication does seem to help the problem permanently. If this case, you are suffering from a psychosomatic disease or disorder. A psychosomatic disease is a disease or disorder that involves the mind and body. Psychosomatic means mind (psyche) and body (soma). An example of a psychosomatic disease that involves the mind and body are migraine headaches. A migraine is a headache that has many symptoms. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and the sensitivity to light. People who suffer from this, they can experience a throbbing pain that is felt on one side of the head. The pain is generally made worse by physical activity.
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The aura happens before the actual headache begins. When a person has an aura, one can experience flashes of light, blind spots, dizziness, and sensitivity to light. In addition, some people who experience migraines isolate themselves in dark quiet places such as closets and under the covers to help reduce the pain. According to (Estemalik and Tepper 2010) In the U.S., 18% of women suffers compared to 6% of men. Women suffer more from migraines due to the many roles played daily. In a household, women are full-time workers, hold high positions at their employment and juggle family
The borders between the different forms are very fluid and the specific conditions are often misdiagnosed as a strong migraine, causing the patients to suffer significant pain before treatment is started. Which directly links to another problem: The treatment. Oxygen treatment seems promising, yet it is not readily available to the patients. Orally administered triptans are usually too weak and nasally administered triptans (e.g. ZOMIG) cannot be used in a sufficient frequency to relieve the pain during the whole day, especially in the case of Paroxysmal Hemicrania where attacks are generally of shorter duration yet of higher intensity. Therefore, patients still need to resort to taking a significant amount of painkillers which is medically problematic since an attack period can last up to several months or even years in the case of chronic conditions which 10-15% of cluster headache patients suffer from.
and they were different from most headaches he had in the past. He would forget things, and then forget more often. He said he had a vague feeling that something just wasn’t right. One day he had a seizure while he was at work.
Every year one hundred thousand young Americans are diagnosed with the disease schizophrenia (Carman Research). Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that is associated with unnatural behavior or thinking . The disease usually affects people during the late adolescence stage or early adulthood, typically during this time they develop the symptoms linked to the disease.
According to The Journal of the American Medical Association, women experience clinical depression at twice the rate of men. A two to one ratio exists regardless of racial or ethnic background or economic status. The lifetime prevalence of major depression is 20-26% for women and 8-12% for men. During the Victorian era during 1837 to 1901 women were traditionally viewed as a possession and not an individual. As they held the stereotype of staying at home and dedicating themselves to feminine duties, such as cleaning and cooking, they did not play any roles in academic thinking or a worthy education.
Fibromyalgia seems to affect mostly women, although men and children can also get it. It is estimated by the that about three to six percent of the U.S. population has fibromyalgia.(Source 4) Yet another source states that it is three to six million people in the U.S. or as many as one in fifty Americans. (Source 1) All of these sources agree that women make up to eighty or ninety percent of fibromyalgic patients.
... gastrointestinal tract, causing stomach cramps that are consistent. Sleep disturbances or lack of good sleep, usually caused by some form of sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome (RLS) that does not allow the body to completely relax and fall into an uninterrupted deep sleep. Temperature sensitivity, when it’s warm, it feels too hot for them or vise versa for cold or cooler weather. It affects Sensitivity to loud noises or bright lights, limiting their ability to be in a noisy environment like a restaurant or even drive a vehicle at night. Cognitive issues with thinking and memory, such as concentration or disorganized thinking. It also causes the inability to stay focused and cognitive recognition, such as seeing a pen on the counter but not being able to say the word pen. This is very common with fibromyalgia and is often called “fibro fog” (Huffington Post).
Headaches happen when there is a continuous pain in the cranial area (Huether, 2004). Moreover, headaches happen when the nerve endings in the brain detect pain. Usually the pain can originate from the nerves and muscles of the head and neck and also from the meninges or the covering of the brain. Frequent bouts of headaches can lead to lack of concentration due to the pain which can impede in productivity in the work place and also academically.
The Capgras Syndrome was initially considered purely as a psychiatric disorder. Such delusions of doubles was seen as one of the various symptoms of schizophrenia, and purely a female disorder [2]. Most of the explanations initially proposed were psychoanalytical in nature. From 1980s neurologists started analyzing the co-existing organic brain lesions originally thought to be unrelated to the symptoms.
Have you ever experienced an unbearable pain in your head that could worsen with just the sound of a single pen falling to the floor or cringed at the sight of a single light switch flipping on that could aggravate your already spotty vision? Have you ever felt a wave of nausea consume your body that could cause your previous meal to be anywhere but your stomach?
Anyone can have it and sometimes you won’t even know they have it. In this case study the doctors didn’t list the name of the patient due to laws. A fifty-nine year old was admitted to the dermatological ward because she was complaining of having multiple skin lesions on her back that spread through her body to her internal organs. She had this symptoms seven years after she was admitted to the hospital for a mosquito bite. They did several test that found no skin lesions. She claimed that she had a double back tingling sensation on her back. Her theory was it was caused by viruses and infected fluids that were traveling through her body to her heart. She was also suffering from sleeping problems due to the delusions. She had retired because of her illness. The spare time she had was spent seeing multiple specialist. They diagnosed her with somatic systems and they started on her medication. They proscribed her two hundred milligrams a day of sulpiride. They also gave her skin ointment that made her think they found a solution to her lesions, she stayed in the hospital for seven days then was discharged. Then she went to get further treatment at their outpatient
Anxiety disorder is a type of abnormal behavior characterized by unrealistic, irrational fear. These types of disorders are diagnosed two as often in women as in men. Although these disorders can be very chronic and serious, they are easily treatable. Generalized anxiety disorder is when people experience fear and worry that is not focused on one specific aspect; nevertheless, they suffer greatly with headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, and insomnia. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, better known as OCD, involves persistent, unwanted, obsessions and irresistible urges to perform compulsions in order to relieve anxiety. Unlike other anxiety disorders, OCD consists more of anxiety and worry rather than fear itself. Many people who experience OCD are aware that there is no motive behind their actions, however their anxiety is heightened when they try to ignore the compulsions. People with such anxiety disorders often experience sensitivity to other people’s views as well as worry over their surroundings.
(Sacks, 2012) The person experiencing them is convinced that what they are seeing or smelling is real, and become very confused as to what is reality and what is not. These most commonly occur in people who suffer from a mental illness such as schizophrenia or various types of psychotic disorders. In this article the author discusses how hallucinations are becoming more common amongst people today, and the different scenarios where they are more present. Hallucinations can occur when experiencing migraines, seizures, or even consuming too much of a particular medication. (Sacks, 2012)
As a student who is interested in psychology and the way the brain works/functions, learning about the somatic symptom disorder intrigues me. I have never actually heard of this disorder before, but hypochondria is about the closest to a somatic disorder that I have learned about. Now, the first thing that really caught my attention about this disorder was the definition about it, “People with somatic symptom disorder become excessively distressed, concerned, and anxious about bodily symptoms that they are experiencing, and their lives are greatly disrupted by the symptoms” (Comer, 2014). This blew my mind. I had always know about people thinking they have had every sickness or believe they are suffering from something they are not, I am also aware of the placebo effect, but the fact that people can create such strong distress in their lives from bodily symptoms they experience is something that brought out my curious nature of why and how. Another thing that is very interesting to me is that there are two patterns of somatic symptom disorder, called somatization pattern (the individual experiences a large and even varied number of bodily symptoms) and predominant pain pattern (which is the individual’s primary bodily problem being the experience of pain) (Comer, 2014).
A migraine is a severe, debilitating headache that hosts a large variety of neurological symptoms such as throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, disturbances in vision, numbness in face or extremities, sensitivity to light, sound, smell and touch. An individual experiencing a migraine may suffer from one or many of these symptoms during an attack. Each migraine attack can vary in it's symptoms and severity making it difficult for a correct medical diagnosis to be made. About 15-20% of people experience aura symptoms (visual disturbances) before the onset of their migraine (About Migraine, n.d.).
Migraine headache causes intense pain in one area of the head, often felt as a pulsating or throbbing sensation, which often can be follow by nausea, vomiting, light and sounds sensitivity. Migraine pain can lingers for hours, even days. At times aura such as blind spots, tingling and flashes of light might precede a migraine headache (Mayo Clinic, 2014).