Migraine Headaches

I decided I wanted to know more about the advances in neuroscience in regard to migraines. This is significant to me because there is a pattern of them in my family. I have migraine headaches, my youngest sister does, my mom does, her dad did, and my son has them. I feel there must be some hereditary trait there. My mother was told by her doctor that she had a fifty-fifty chance of passing the problem of “migraines” on to her children. She had four children and two have migraines. I have two children and one has migraines. Science about the brain is very interesting to me. I analyzed three articles that addressed issues such as, is overuse of medication associated with migraine, what are the risk factors in migraine patients, and

what can help them to gain control over their treatment program.

I examined the article, The role of BOLD-fMRI in elucidating migraine pathophysiology, from Neurological Sciences, May 2013 Supplement, by G. Tedeschi, A. Russo, F. Conte, F. Salemi, and A. Tessitore. They state in their abstract that even though there have been many discoveries in the study of functional changes in the body that occur in response to migraine and it’s still not completely understood. They studied both types of migraine, migraine with aura and migraine without aura, and found data suggesting a functional reorganization in the pain processing area of the brain that adjusts perception to pain. Two other studies, Application of behavioral therapies in adult and adolescent patients with chronic migraine, by Randall E. Weeks at The New England Center for Headache and Multidisciplinary approach to patients with chronic migraine and medication overuse: experience at the Besta Headache Center, by L. Grazzi from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Headache Unit, C. Besta Neurological Institute and Foundation, Italy, both studied medication overuse and behavior effects on migraine sufferers. They had similar findings in their studies. Medication overuse is often a result of behavior because emotions and pain

become intertwined. Patients anticipate pain and take medication unnecessarily causing overuse and a decrease in its effectiveness. Another problem is when patients start to feel pain they automatically stop any physical activity because they fear it will cause more pain. As they become less active it leads to other problems, like muscle stiffness, that ultimately cause more pain and an increased use of pain medication for that other pain. They found that regular physical activity can actually improve the body’s tolerance to pain. I know my chiropractor has suggested that my son has less migraines because he has a much stronger back than I do.

He sees this with the adjustments he makes on each of us. This is making sense to me know after reading this study. I did this exactly: I would get headaches as a child and decided it would be better for me not to participate in P.E. at school because I felt it would cause headaches. It became my way of life. When in reality, if I had been more physically active and developed that habit early on, the regular exercise would’ve helped me possibly have fewer headaches overall. These types of things are considered “modifiable” risks and also include things as obesity, stressful life events, caffeine overuse, and snoring/sleep apnea. All these things can be addressed and altered in the migraine sufferer’s life. These studies also marked how there is a direct impact to migraine sufferers, their families, productivity at work, and extra cost for health services. I feel that society’s and doctor’s attitudes need to change in regard to migraines. From these studies, I feel there is evidence to support that if there were better treatment combinations for migraine patients, involving both behavior therapy and medication, those of us with migraines could be better contributors to our families and society instead of

feeling as if we are a burden.