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With Halloween on the way this month, it’s likely your kids are planning their haunted house and Trick or Treating trips already. For migraineurs, however, this fun, festive activity can be a traumatic event filled with triggers. Fall already carries migraine risks of its own, and Halloween adds another layer of potential problems for patients. With careful advance planning, however, you can enjoy it and possibly even avoid a migraine attack.
Around 15 percent of the U.S. population currently experiences migraine headaches, which affect both genders and all age groups. In children, similar numbers of boys and girls suffer from the disorder, while after 65 years of age the headaches diminish equally in both genders. During the reproductive years, however, women make up more than twice the number of patients than men, and hormones are believed to be a major reason for this.
The old saying “love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage,” also applies to migraine headaches and neck pain, although with a lot less enjoyment!
Sensitivity to sound is a common migraine trigger, particularly in the prodrome phase, but patients often don’t realize the extent of its effect on their headaches. In a March 2015 report published in Neurology, researchers discovered a connection between migraine patients and people with heightened awareness to sound, which suggests that suppressing certain sounds during a migraine can help to avoid making it worse.
The irritating buzzing and ringing in the ears that signifies an attack of tinnitus is a common issue, affecting around 50 million Americans. Interestingly, it’s not an independent medical condition but a symptom of several other problems, including many types of headache disorders. Patients often mistake migraines for inner ear problems and vice versa, partly because both can cause tinnitus. Here are the differences between tinnitus and migraine, and details on how they are connected.
Surgical interventions for migraine are becoming more popular as the number of patients who successfully undergo the procedure increases. Medicine naturally evolves and becomes more effective as knowledge deepens through research and data gathering, but there is still some confusion around the question of undergoing surgery for migraines.
Fatigue is an unwelcome side effect of migraine that affects many sufferers. In fact, studies reveal that up to 84% of people with migraine are also battling this issue. In some people fatigue can actually trigger migraines, or it may be a warning of an imminent attack. The fatigue might not appear until after the pain goes away, or it could be present throughout the episode.
It may seem unlikely that damage to your jaw could cause migraine-type headaches, but since damage or injury to one area can cause physical tension that affects other areas, it’s not as surprising as it might first appear. Damage to the temporomandibular joints could, in fact, be contributing to your migraines.
When your head is pounding and you have all the other symptoms of a migraine attack, it’s tempting to head for your nearest emergency room in the hope of finding some relief. But can an ER really help with migraines, or are you just wasting your precious rest time by going?
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a treatment commonly given to patients suffering from various types of anxiety disorders. Many chronic migraine patients find their headaches are triggered by stress, especially when it’s related to anxiety or depression. Whether your stress is caused by relationship problems, financial challenges, drug or alcohol abuse, mental health issues or sleeping difficulties, CBT may be able to reduce the frequency of your migraine attacks.
