Migraines: That Ache In Your Head Essay

It’s 5a.m and I can barely move; everything is blurry, my right hand is numb, and the right side of my head is pounding. A couple hours later everything transferred from my right side of my body to the left side of my body. It is a migraine that I am having, and this has been my life since 6th grade.

Fibromyalgia has been described as a full-body migraine. Another common explanation is to compare everyday life with FMS as being similar to the aches and pains associated with a severe

It's like the worst migraine of your life, and it seems like it will never go away.

Didion describes the onset of a migraine feeling like a “flush of blood into the cerebral

Migraine headaches are the third most prevalent illness in the world, and ranked as the sixth most disabling illness. Statistics show that only about fifty percent of people who suffer from chronic headaches know that they’re suffering from a migraine. 76% of people who suffer from migraines worry that they will suffer for the rest of their lives, and 37% of sufferers worried about their migraines between attacks. Studies found that approximately 12% of Americans suffer from migraines, and 40% of Americans could benefit from preventative therapies. Even though studies show that at least 40% of sufferers could benefit from preventative therapies, only one in five sufferers are currently using preventative therapies. Studies also show that over 25% of people who suffer from migraine attacks miss at least one working day over the past three months, and nine out of ten sufferers say that they cannot “function normally” during those days. At least 98 percent of migraine attack sufferers take medications for temporary headache relief, whether it be over the counter or prescription. Only 12% of sufferers take preventative medications as opposed to the 98% of sufferers taking medications for relief. Severe migraines are ranked in the highest of seven disability classes, along with psychosis, dementia, and quadriplegia, published by the World Health Organization. People who participated in a survey who admitted to a

For the past couple of years, I have witnessed first hand the effects that trigeminal neuralgia does to the human body. My mother was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia in 2010. She was suffering from the pain of the condition for more than two years before she was correctly diagnosed at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. My mother always explained her pain as worse than childbirth, and that is because she has had four children. It caused my mom to have multiple sleepless nights, an aching jaws, constant and excruciating pain, and in one extreme incident, her job locked while she was chewing causing her to choke and had to receive the Heimlich maneuver. Being that she said it was the worst pain in her life, my family knew it was something more than chronic migraines: which is what one of the doctors she saw in the Rio Grande Valley diagnosed her with.

In the past, they have been on the average of one everyone and half weeks. They start at the vertex and radiate to the nuchal area and retrobulbar area. They are throbbing, worsen with exertion. She has nausea, photophobia, and phonophobia with these. Precipitants include stress. She has never been on any prophylactic medications or triptans. She had a severe migraine a few months ago, resulting in a dull, daily headache for one month. She had another severe migraine two weeks ago, which was present for a whole week. She had a spinal tap done. She previously had negative serum Lyme titers. The CSF Lyme Western blot was positive for four bands. Her primary care physician did give her a course of doxycycline. The emergency room gave her Tramadol, which does not work. She has been using Tylenol with Motrin two to three days out of the week. Family history includes a sister and

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs may lessen pain severity for a while, but they won't treat the underlying cause of the problem. Furthermore, OTC and prescription drugs can cause unwanted side effects and

Usually, I wake up with my migraines so getting the in the middle of the day is a rare

The word migraine is a Greek word which means “half of head”. It is thought that people who

The attack stage is typically from four to 72 hours, with the frequency depending on the person. Symptoms of the migraine attack vary from person to person, but typically the pain is on one side of the head, pain will have a pulsing or throbbing quality, nausea and vomiting, sensitivity to light and sound, and lightheadedness.

This began in Greece when Galen said that vapors from the liver going to the head caused them. However, later on Harold Wolff decided that they come from stretching and dilating blood vessels in the brain. This lead people to believe that a decrease in blood causes the migraine, but it was later observed that an increase in blood is what causes the pain. However, blood flow is not increased during the headache, rather the circulation remains normal or in some cases is reduced. These findings have lead people to assume that the main culprit may be a nervous system disorder. Sadly, this disorder occurs in one of the most primitive and required parts of the nervous system, the brain

Migraines affect nearly 28 million people or 12% of the population in the United States. Migraines are typified by moderate to severe head pain. The head pain is often accompanied by one or more of the following; nausea, photophobia, phonophobia or vomiting. Migraines are considered a chronic neurological disorder. The incidence of migraine related nausea (MRN) is very high among migraneurs. Roughly 90% of patients experience MRN at one time or another. Roughly 50% of patients report experiencing MRN with high frequency (greater than half the time). MRN can hinder the efficacy of currently available migraine drugs in a number of ways. Many patients who experience MRN will delay or avoid taking oral or nasal migraine medication as it can further irritate their stomach. The GI upset associated with migraines can also affect absorption and thus limit systemic exposure to the drug. Researchers have been working diligently to find a solution to this problem.

A migraine is a common type headache. In addition, migraines can cause moderate to severe pain and is often described as throbbing or pulsating pain on one side of the head. In addition, migraines can cause blurred vision when exposed to light and sound, nausea, and vomiting pounding.

Migraine headaches are the result of a disturbance in the neurochemistry of the central nervous system. They are relatively common, affecting three times as many women as men. Migraine sufferers typically report a definite pattern to their headaches, and they can report what stimuli bring them on. Most migraine sufferers experience their first attack before the age of 20. There is no single cause of migraines, but the tendency to get migraines does tend to run in families. When a migraine occurs, it means that something has altered several of the neurotransmitter-sensitive receptors located on the outside surface of the nerve cells (neurons) so that the nervous system is no longer able to constantly maintain the natural balance that the