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Migraine headaches are a worldwide condition, affecting almost 15 percent of people. Patients suffer from severe head pain as well as a range of other symptoms, including sensitivity to light, nausea and anxiety. Sometimes, a migraine attack includes heightened sensitivity to environmental factors that typically don’t cause stimulation, one of which is changeable levels of dopamine. For migraine sufferers, this information could help increase understanding of the role of dopamine in migraine...
One of the first things migraine sufferers learn to do is recognize their triggers. These are events or circumstances that lead to migraine symptoms, and they may be either internal or external. Common internal triggers include emotional factors such as stress or lack of sleep, while external factors include noise levels, bright lights or even the weather.
Change of any kind is difficult for most of us, and that includes changes in diet. We all have favorites we eat that we know we shouldn’t, and the modern fast food diet of heavily processed convenient food does us no favors either.
Migraine sufferers know how hard it is to pinpoint the root cause of the condition. Often, just getting a migraine diagnosis is a complicated undertaking, involving many tests and specialist consultations. And that’s only the first step, since the underlying cause can still be unclear.
As our hormones can play a part in triggering a migraine, it’s no coincidence that more women than men suffer from migraine headaches, or that they’re more common in women during their reproductive years.
People are often surprised to hear that anti-depressant medications are offered in the treatment of migraine headaches. New migraine sufferers can feel a little shocked if their doctor recommends anti-depressants, especially when they have no depression symptoms or feelings.
Over decades of intensive research into migraine pain and its causes, knowledge of this debilitating condition has improved greatly. There’s still lots to do to fully understand what happens in the brain to cause so many diverse symptoms, but thankfully it’s now widely accepted that migraine is not simply another term for ‘headache’.
One of the most common migraine triggers is the weather. In a recent study, 75% of sufferers reported headaches brought on by changes in atmospheric pressure. It’s a simple matter to avoid something like red wine if you know this is one of your personal triggers, but what can you do about headaches brought on by fluctuations in barometric pressure?
The first step is to understand what the term means, and how it can potentially affect you.
In many migraine patients, the exact cause of the headaches is unknown. Individually, sufferers can discover their (often unique) pain triggers and learn to avoid them as far as possible, but this doesn’t explain why flashing lights, for instance, will cause a migraine in one person and leave another completely well.
We sit too long, use computers for hours, work in unhealthy buildings, and get too little fresh air. If everything else in health and life is equal, we cope even though those things are bad for everyone.
For migraine sufferers, conditions at work can escalate an already hard-to-manage condition. The good news is there are some things you can do at work that will help and, if those fail it’s possible co-workers or bosses can step in and make necessary changes.
