What Causes Migraine to trigger?
- Hormonal changes in women. Fluctuations in estrogen seem to trigger headaches in many women as headaches are often reported in women with migraine history immediately before or during their menses, when they have a major drop in estrogen.
- Others have an increased tendency to develop migraines during pregnancy or menopause.
- Hormonal medications, such as oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy, also may worsen migraines. Some women, however, find their migraines occur less often when taking these medications.
- Foods. Aged cheeses, salty foods and processed foods may trigger migraines. Skipping meals or fasting also can trigger attacks.
- Food additives. The sweetener aspartame and the preservative monosodium glutamate (MSG), found in many foods, may trigger migraines.
- Drinks. Alcohol, especially wine, and highly caffeinated beverages may trigger migraines.
- Stress. Stress at work or home can cause migraines.
- Sensory stimuli. Bright lights, sun glare and loud sounds, strong smells including perfume, paint thinner, secondhand smoke and others can trigger migraines in some people.
- Changes in wake-sleep pattern. Missing sleep or getting too much sleep may trigger migraines, as can jet lag.
- Physical exertion. Intense physical exertion, exercise, including sexual activity, may provoke migraines.
- Changes in the environment. A change of weather can also prompt a migraine.
- Medications. Oral contraceptives and vasodilators, such as nitroglycerin, can aggravate migraines.
What are the four Phases of migraine?
There are four phases to a migraine, although not all the phases are necessarily experienced:
• The prodrome, which occurs hours or days before the headache.
- Premonitory symptoms occur in about 60% of those with migraines, with an onset that can range from two hours to two days before the start of pain or the aura.
- These symptoms may include a wide variety of phenomena, including altered mood, irritability, depression or euphoria, fatigue, craving for certain foods, stiff muscles (especially in the neck), constipation or diarrhea, and sensitivity to smells or noise.
• The aura, which immediately precedes the headache. Aura gradually builds up over several minutes and lasts for 20 to 60 minutes
- Visual phenomena, such as seeing various shapes, bright spots or flashes of light
- Vision loss
- Pins and needles sensations in an arm or leg
- Weakness or numbness in the face or one side of the body
- Difficulty speaking
- Hearing noises or music
- Uncontrollable jerking
• The postdrome, the effects experienced following the end of a migraine attack.
You feel drained and washed out, while some people feel elated. For about 24 hours, you may also experience:
- Confusion
- Moodiness
- Dizziness
- Weakness
- Sensitivity to light and sound
What are the Types of migraine?
Migraines are classified into seven types:
• Migraine without aura, or "common migraine", involves migraine headaches that are not accompanied by an aura.
• Migraine with aura, or "classic migraine", usually involves migraine headaches accompanied by an aura. Less commonly, an aura can occur without a headache, or with a non-migraine headache.
• Two other varieties are familial hemiplegic migraine and sporadic hemiplegic migraine, in which a person has migraines with aura and with accompanying motor weakness. If a close relative has had the same condition, it is called "familial", otherwise it is called "sporadic".
• Basilar-type migraine, where a headache and aura are accompanied by difficulty speaking, world spinning, ringing in ears, or a number of other brainstem-related symptoms, but not motor weakness. The symptomatic term migraine with brainstem aura (MBA) is preferred.
• Retinal migraine involves migraine headaches accompanied by visual disturbances or even temporary blindness in one eye.
• Chronic migraine is a complication of migraines, and is a headache that fulfills diagnostic criteria for migraine headache and occurs for a greater time interval. Specifically, greater or equal to 15 days/month for longer than 3 months.
• Abdominal migraine: Recurrent episodes of abdominal pain in the absence of a headache may be a type of migraine or are at least a precursor to migraines. Syndromes that are believed to be precursors include cyclical vomiting syndrome and benign paroxysmal vertigo of childhood.
What Complications can migraine lead to?
• Chronic migraine. If your migraine lasts for 15 or more days a month for more than three months, you have chronic migraine.
• Status migrainosus. Few people suffer with this complication having intense migraine and long-lasting attacks that last for longer than three days. It's also called an intractable migraine.
• Persistent aura without infarction. A persistent aura lasting for more than one week after migraine attack may have similar symptoms to bleeding in the brain (stroke), but without signs of bleeding in the brain or tissue damage.
• Migrainous infarction. Aura symptoms that last longer than one hour can signal a loss of blood supply to an area of the brain (stroke), and should be evaluated. Neuroimaging tests are done to identify bleeding in the brain.
How to Prevent Migraine episodes?
Try these dietary and lifestyle modifications to prevent symptoms:
- Identify and avoid triggers. Keep track of your symptom patterns in a diary so you can figure out what’s causing them.
- Manage stress. Relaxation techniques like meditation, yoga, and mindful breathing can help.
- Eat on a regular schedule.
- Stay hydrated. Drink lots of fluids.
- Adequate sleep. Get plenty of rest.
- Stay fit. Get regular moderate exercise.
How Homeopathy helps in migraine?
- Homeopathy can help you lead a healthy life by prevention of further headache attacks.
- Homeopathy medication can help reduce the intensity and the frequency of occurrence of these headache episode in a safe way.
- Remedy is prescribed that best matches to your symptoms.
- Homoeopathic medicines are prescribed on the basis of Individualization, which is tailoring the remedy according to the individual's needs. It means every individual is different from others in some way; be it his stature, talking, choices, behavior, or his susceptibility to diseases.
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