Is It Really A Migraine?

Is that throbbing pulsating headache you are experiencing really a migraine? Over 40 million people experience migraine headaches. Migraine attacks are more common in women than men. In fact, they are about three times more common in women. It is one of the most common types of headache today.

How do you define migraine?

I’ve searched for a while for a migraine definition that is simple and easy to understand. Fellow sufferers describe it as a very painful and intolerable type of headache.

Medical practitioners define migraine as a kind of vascular headache. Researchers once believed the dilation and constriction of blood vessels in the head caused migraines. Scientists now believe migraines are inherited abnormalities in genes that control the activities of some of the cells in the brain.

My plain and simple migraine definition is a severe, throbbing and pulsating vascular headache that can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

Attacks are usually accompanied by several warning symptoms such as:

• seeing stars or flashes of light
• blind spots
• tingling in the arms and legs
• nausea
• vomiting
• increased sensitivity to light and sound

These symptoms are “auras”. You can have headache pain on either side of your head, sometimes pain can occur on both sides of your and occasionally you can have a migraine without a headache.

Types of Migraines

There are two major types of migraine: classical and non-classical. The type of migraine with an aura is called classical. The aura usually begins about 35 minutes before onset of the headache. You’ve probably noticed that you can almost predict when an attack is coming because you get one of the early warning signals. Maybe you began seeing flashes of light or perhaps you became nauseated and started vomiting. In a classical migraine your blood vessels become constricted. Then when it attacks there is an increase in size of your blood vessels. To get a jump-start on treating your headache pain you may want to take your migraine medication at the first sign of an aura symptom.

The second type of migraine is non-classical. Non-classical migraines hit without an aura or early warning symptoms. Some also call this a simple migraine. This headache occurs from the closing of the blood vessels up to the point of the blood vessels increasing in size. When a non-classical migraine hits you should take your medication at the first sign of headache pain.

Classical and non-classical are the most common types of migraine but there are still other forms of migraines. These are: cluster migraines, abdominal, ocular, basilar artery, retinal, confusional, hemiplegic, status migrainosus and carotidynia.

No matter how you define migraine, you’ll want to keep a migraine diary. In your diary track the type of migraine, any auras or early warning signs and symptoms, and what you ate preceding your headache. You may also want to look into herbal migraine remedies and supplements to help reduce your migraine frequency.

Posted in Headaches