TYPES OF MIGRAINE

Symptoms

There are several types of migraine, all share basic features, and each person will suffer this headache in a unique way. Generally, however, migraine often begins as a dull ache and then develops into a constant, throbbing and pulsating pain that you may feel at the temples, as well as the front or back of one side of the head. The pain is usually accompanied by nausea and vomiting, and sensitivity to light and noise.
The two most prevalent types of migraine are migraine with aura (formerly referred to as classic migraine) and migraine without aura (formerly referred to as common migraine).
Migraine without Aura
As we have said, migraine is a vascular headache, which means the headache is associated with changes in the size of the arteries inside and around the skull. During the pre-headache phase, blood vessels constrict; when vascular dilation occurs, the migraine begins. The blood vessels are thought to become inflamed as well as swollen, and it is believed that migraine pain is caused by this inflammation, as well as by the pressure on the swollen walls of the blood vessels.
Most migraine sufferers experience two to four headaches per month; but, some people can get one every few days, and others may only have one or two a year. Most migraine headaches last at least four hours, although very severe ones can last up to a week. Headaches may begin at any time of the day or night; and while a sufferer may wake up with one, a migraine will rarely awaken a person from sleep.
Approximately one-third of migraine sufferers experience an aura prior to the headache pain.
Migraine with Aura
While most migraine sufferers experience visual problems during the headache, you may be someone whose migraine begins with an aura, a manifestation of neurological symptoms. Generally, the aura begins from five to thirty minutes before the actual onset of the headache. You may see wavy or jagged lines, dots or flashing lights; or, you experience tunnel vision or blind spots in one or both eyes. The aura can include vision or hearing hallucinations and disruptions in smell (such as strange odors), taste or touch. It can become even more disconcerting or frightening if it involves feelings of numbness, a "pins-and-needles" sensation or even difficulty in recalling or speaking the correct word. These neurological events may last sixty minutes and will fade as the headache begins.
Hemiplegic Migraine
If you suffer from this rare but severe type of migraine with aura, you probably also have a family history of it. The hemiplegic migraine often begins with temporary motor paralysis and/or sensory disturbances on one side of the body, followed by the headache -- within the hour -- which may be accompanied by numbness or the "pins and needles" sensation. When the headache appears, the initial neurological symptoms may disappear.
Ophthalmoplegic Migraine
Also a rare and severe migraine, the ophthalmoplegic migraine’s pain usually surrounds the eyeball and lasts from a few days to a few months. There may be paralysis in the muscles surrounding the eye. If these symptoms occur, you should seek immediate medical attention because the symptoms can be caused by pressure on the nerves behind the eye.
Retinal Migraine
Another rare migraine, the retinal type starts with a temporary, partial, or complete loss of vision in one eye. It is followed by a dull ache behind that eye that may spread to the rest of the head.
Basilar Artery Migraine
This very rare form of migraine is accompanied by dizziness, confusion or lack of balance. It comes on suddenly and can result in fleeting visual disturbances, the inability to speak properly, ringing in the ears, and vomiting. Throbbing occurs in the back of the head. The basilar artery migraine is strongly related to hormonal influences and primarily strikes young adult women and adolescent girls; as sufferers age, the migraine with aura may replace the basilar artery type.
Abdominal Migraine
It is difficult to diagnose this migraine because the pain is felt in the abdomen. Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea may occur, and the pain usually occurs in the middle of the abdomen. The attack typically lasts hours and occurs mostly in children as a forerunner of migraine.

What Is A Migraine

A migraine headache is a form of vascular headache. Migraine headache is caused by vasodilatation (enlargement of blood vessels) that causes the release of chemicals from nerve fibers that coil around the large arteries of the brain. Enlargement of these blood vessels stretches the nerves that coil around them and causes the nerves to release chemicals. The chemicals cause inflammation, pain, and further enlargement of the artery. The increasing enlargement of the arteries magnifies the pain.

Migraine attacks commonly activate the sympathetic nervous system in the body. The sympathetic nervous system is often thought of as the part of the nervous system that controls primitive responses to stress and pain, the so-called "fight or flight" response, and this activation causes many of the symptoms associated with migraine attacks; for example, the increased sympathetic nervous activity in the intestine causes nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Sympathetic activity also delays emptying of the stomach into the small intestine and thereby prevents oral medications from entering the intestine and being absorbed.
The impaired absorption of oral medications is a common reason for the ineffectiveness of medications taken to treat migraine headaches.
The increased sympathetic activity also decreases the circulation of blood, and this leads to pallor of the skin as well as cold hands and feet.
The increased sympathetic activity also contributes to the sensitivity to light and sound sensitivity as well as blurred vision.
Migraine afflicts 28 million Americans, with females suffering more frequently (17%) than males (6%). Missed work and lost productivity from migraine create a significant public burden. Nevertheless, migraine still remains largely underdiagnosed and undertreated. Less than half of individuals with migraine are diagnosed by their doctors.

Migraine Treatement

1.I will help you to identify any and ALL of your migraine triggers looking at every aspect of your life including your diet, habits and other environmental factors in your day to day life that you might not have noticed yet.

2.I will explain to you the mindset strategies that make The Migraine Solution so successful and you will instantly see how powerful your thinking can influence your condition.
3.I will show you the exact treatment strategy that I myself (and many thousands of other people) have used to treat migraine headaches.
4.You will get a battle plan to instantly reduce your migraine severity and strategies to continue reducing your migraine headache severity and frequency now and into the future.
5.And finally - I will offer you ongoing support with your condition. I understand what you're going through as I have been there and done that first hand. My program is now offering (for a limited time) unlimited one-on-one support with me personally to discuss your unique problems and how you can work to overcome them.

Arthritis Patients

Although being physically active is one of the best ways people with osteoarthritis can alleviate pain and improve their ability to get around, a new study shows that people with the joint disease are much more sedentary than previously thought.

Researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine found that more than half of women and 40 percent of men with knee osteoarthritis are basically "couch potatoes," and not engaging in the physical activity that is vital to their health.
Using a small device called an accelerometer, researchers measured the physical activity of more than 1,000 people aged 49 to 84 with radiographic knee osteoarthritis for one week.
Although federal guidelines recommend that adults with arthritis participate in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity, low-impact activity each week (about 20 minutes per day), the study revealed that fewer than one in seven men, and only one in 12 women actually met those guidelines.
Meanwhile, 40.1 percent of men and 56.5 percent of women did not sustain 10 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity over the course of the week, and were therefore deemed "inactive."
These levels of physical activity were significantly lower than what had been reported in previous studies that relied on participants' self-reported accounts of exercise and activity.
"We had assumed that people might be overstating physical activity in past self-reported data, but were surprised to find that the physical activity rates were much, much lower than what was previously reported," study author Dorothy Dunlop, an associate professor of medicine at Feinberg, said in a university news release.
Dunlop said the findings, published in the August issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, should be a "wake-up call" for doctors.
"Even though they have joint disease, patients need to be reminded that physical activity is actually good for them," Dunlop added. "People with arthritis should be as physically active as possible, even if they accomplish less than the recommended levels. When it comes to physical activity, there is good evidence that the benefits far outweigh the risks and being inactive is especially detrimental to health."

Migraine Treated

The first line of treatment is always to try and identify trigger factors, which means keeping a careful record of events, mainly of foods that have preceded an attack. Particular foods are identified as migraine triggers in about 20 per cent of sufferers. The large female preponderance within migraine sufferers points to the importance of hormonal factors, such as the menstrual cycle, which are not modifiable. Many women also find that the oral contraceptive pill worsens attacks, and if so it should be stopped. (Women who get migraines with aura, severe migraines regularly lasting over 72 hours despite treatment, or migraines that are treated with ergot medicines should not take the contraceptive pill.) People suffering a migraine should try to rest in a dark, quiet room. Treatment of migraine is most effective if given at the start of an attack. Treatments for sufferers aged under 18 may differ from older patients, so it's important to discuss this with the pharmacist before buying any over the counter remedies. They are all prescription medicines, with the exception of sumatriptan, which can now be bought from pharmacies as Imigran recovery. These drugs cause the blood vessels around the brain to contract, therefore counteracting the dilatation that seems to part of the initial migraine process. They come in various forms, including nasal sprays, injections and tablets that dissolve on the tongue, which can be useful if nausea and vomiting are a problem during the migraine. It's worth noting that using any painkillers for headaches or migraines too often or for too long can actually make the headaches worse. If you find you're getting frequent migraines and are often taking painkillers, it's important to consult your doctor for advice. Often several kinds of medication need to be tried and perhaps combined before the most effective treatment for each individual patient can be found. Alternative therapies, such as homoeopathy and acupuncture, are popular even if the evidence supporting their effectiveness is poor or absent. The herbal remedy feverfew has shown some efficacy in preventing migraine and is available over the counter as Migraherb. Lifestyle and dietary advice are always important.

Manage Your Life With Migraine Disease

The first migraine that I experienced was at the age of nineteen, approximately 2-3 weeks following the birth of my first child. It was quite horrible as I recall it... although worse migraine episodes occurred in the years to follow. My guess is that hormone changes were the onset factor in this episode. My first migraine was not looked upon with compassion by some of my family. My husband (we have since divorced) was less than sympathetic as he was unfamiliar to pain himself and did not understand how to relate to other people's pain. I also received the wrath of my then mother-in-law. She was angered that my husband was unable to escort his younger brother as planned that evening to a local baseball game because my husband was forced to stay home to care for our newborn while I was incapacitated. USA Today survey regarding Family Reaction to Migraine Sufferers indicated that our loved ones'reactions when migraines occur often range anywhere from understanding to resentment.

Symptoms If Migraine

Vision disturbances, or aura, are considered a "warning sign" that a migraine is coming. The aura occurs in both eyes and may involve any or all of the following: * A temporary blind spot * Blurred vision * Eye pain * Seeing stars or zigzag lines * Tunnel vision Not every person with migraines has an aura. Those who do usually develop one about 10 - 15 minutes before the headache. However, it may occur just a few minutes to 24 hours beforehand. Migraine headaches can be dull or severe. The pain may be felt behind the eye or in the back of the head and neck. For many patients, the headaches start on the same side each time. The headaches usually: * Feel throbbing, pounding, or pulsating * Are worse on one side of the head * Start as a dull ache and get worse within minutes to hours * Last 6 to 48 hours Other symptoms that may occur with the headache include: * Chills * Increased urination * Fatigue * Loss of appetite * Nausea and vomiting * Numbness, tingling, or weakness * Problems concentrating, trouble finding words * Sensitivity to light or sound * Sweating Symptoms that may linger even after the migraine has gone away include: * Feeling mentally dull, like your thinking is not clear or sharp * Increased need for sleep * Neck pain

Coffee Lowers Risk Of Prostate Cancer

Men who are heavy coffee drinkers are at lower risk for prostate cancer, says a study. The researchers found that those who consumed six or more cups a day were almost 20 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer over two decades than those who drank none, according to New York Times Friday. Scientists at Harvard University followed 47,911 men who periodically described their coffee consumption. More important, the heavy coffee drinkers were 60 percent less likely than the non-drinkers to develop a lethal form of the disease, it said. Even men who drank just one to three cups of coffee benefited: They were nearly 30 percent less likely to develop lethal prostate cancer, the study said. It did not matter whether the coffee was caffeinated or decaffeinated. The study, published online Tuesday in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is one of the first to link coffee consumption to a lower risk of prostate cancer. 'We're not yet telling men to drink more coffee,' the daily quoted the lead author of the study Kathryn M. Wilson, research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, as saying. 'But there's mounting evidence that if they do, they don't have to worry about it,' she said. Coffee is a major dietary source of antioxidants, and other studies have suggested that drinking it is associated with health benefits, including a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Cheap diabetes drug could elp Fight Breast Cancer

A low cost diabetes drug could benefit breast cancer sufferers. Anthony Howell, director of the breakthrough breast cancer research unit at the University of Manchester, said: 'We have some way to go but we hope that drugs like metformin will be saving lives of breast cancer patients over the next few years.' Scientists have developed a new test that identifies patients who could benefit from the cheap treatment, reports the journal Cell Cycle. They found that the people whose cancer cells 'fed' off high-energy compounds were more likely to see their tumours spread than to die, the Telegraph reports. This meant they could be helped by being given metformin, which stops the 'fuel supply' for aggressive cancer cells. Howell's counterpart, Michael Lisanti at Manchester, said: 'We've shown that the saying, 'you are what you eat' holds true for cancer. The food cancer cells consume is crucial to how well a patient does and what treatment they need.' 'However, patients could benefit from metformin, which cuts off this fuel supply. There is more work to do but this test could be an important new way of tailoring treatments to a patient's needs, across a range of cancers.' Last year it was reported that metformin was being tested to see if it can stop the growth of lung cancers. Researchers from Manchester and Thomas Jefferson University in the US studied 219 breast cancer patients and worked out which ones had tumours that fed on high-energy foods, known as ketones and lactate, found in healthy cells.

Hormonal Deficiencies

Most studies involving hormone deficiency and aging have focused on the relationship between individual hormones and specific age-associated disease. In a recently released study, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine investigated the possibility that frailty would mostly likely manifest in the presence of deficits in multiple hormones. They studied the relationships of serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), DHEAS, and unbound testosterone with frailty status in aging women. The study used 494 women aged 70 to 79 years who were enrolled in the Women's Health and Aging Studies I or II. Scientists calculated the odds of frailty for deficiency of each hormone, which they defined as the bottom quartile of hormone level. They found that for each hormone, those with a deficiency were more likely to be frail than those without a deficiency. Compared with women who showed no hormonal deficiencies, those with one deficiency were somewhat more likely to be frail. However, those women with two or three deficiencies had a very high likelihood of being frail. The odds ratio for frailty for these women was 2.79, meaning that women who were deficient in more than one hormone had almost a 3 times greater risk of being frail than women who were not hormonally deficient. The scientists concluded that the absolute burden of hormonal deficiencies in the bodies of aging women was a stronger predictor of frailty status than the type of hormonal deficiency. They found the relationship to be exponential, and suggestive of generalized endocrine dysfunction in the frailty syndrome. This study may be found in the January 31 edition of Journals of Gerontology Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences. People diagnosed as frail lose the ability to care for themselves and live independently Frailty is characterized by unexplained weight loss, exhaustion, weak grip, slow walking speed, and generalized low energy levels. Women who are frail are the most vulnerable, most at risk for disability or death, and are the highest users of medical care. In a nationwide study of 5,000 older adults, those who were frail were found to be six times more likely to die than those who were not over a three-year period, and more than three times more likely to die over a seven-year period. After seven years, 43 percent of those who were frail had died, compared to 23 percent of those who were classified as intermediate, and 12 percent of those who were robust. A diagnosis of frailty is made based on symptoms such as shrinking (unintentional weight loss of at least 10 pounds or 5 percent of body weight compared to a year ago), weakness (grip strength in the lowest 20th percentile), poor endurance and energy (self-reported exhaustion), slowness (the most time it takes to walk 15 feet), and low physical activity level (the lowest 20 percent in physical activity compared to others). Frail women have a very high incidence of osteoporosis. They are the most likely group to suffer falls that result in broken bones, and may even suffer broken bones without a fall. Frail women and men are the highest users of disease establishment services and are the most likely to be admitted to nursing homes. Men with multiple hormonal deficiencies are more than twice as likely to die Aging in men is also characterized by progressive decline in levels of hormones such as testosterone, IGF-1, and DHEAS. In a study at the National Institute on Aging, scientists investigated whether deficiencies in these hormones were associated with higher mortality. Testosterone, IGF-1, DHEAS, and demographic factors were evaluated in 410 men age 65 and older enrolled in the Aging in the Chianti Area Study. The men were divided into four groups: no hormone in the lowest reference quartile, and 1, 2, and 3 hormones in the lowest quartiles. Compared with men having levels of all 3 hormones above the lowest quartiles, having 1, 2, and 3 deficient hormones was associated with hazard ratios for mortality of 1.47, 1.85, and 2.29. This means that men deficient in 3 hormones were more than two and one-quarter times more likely to die. The scientists concluded that age associated decline in hormone levels is a strong independent predictor of mortality in older men. Having multiple hormone deficiencies is a reliable biomarker of health status in older men. This study is from the November, 2007 Archives of Internal Medicine. Hormonally deficient men with chronic heart failure have the poorest prognosis In men with chronic heart failure, hormone depletion is common. A deficiency of each hormone is an independent marker of poor prognosis according to a study at the Military Hospital of Wroclaw, Poland. Serum levels of total testosterone, DHEAS, and IGF-1 were obtained from 208 men with chronic heart failure who were hospitalized or treated as outpatients, and from a reference population of 366 men free of chronic disease. Deficiencies in DHEAS, total and unbound testosterone, and IGF-1, defined as serum levels at or below the 10th percentile of healthy peers, were seen across all age categories of men with chronic heart failure. DHEAS deficiency correlated positively with left ventricular disturbance. Testosterone measures and IGF-1 levels were prognostic biomarkers. Men with chronic heart failure and normal levels of all hormones had the best 3 year survival rate (83 percent) compared to those with 1 hormone deficiency (74 percent survival rate), 2 hormone deficiencies (55 percent survival rate), and 3 hormone deficiencies (27 percent) survival rate. This study is from the October 24, 2006 edition of Circulation.

How To Get Rid Of A Migraine

If you are a migraine headache sufferer you know how important it is to get pain relief fast. A migraine can be so severe that it can put a stop to your whole day. Many people who have migraines may have two or more each month. This article will examine a few ways to get rid of a migraine headache. If you experience auras with your migraines then you have a warning system in place. It you start to notice bright flashes of light, dark spots in your field of vision or zigzag lines in your vision field, then you are about to develop a migraine. Take an over the counter NSAIDS right away. These drugs such as, Advil and Motrin can help with mild pain from migraines. It is probably a good idea to lie down in a dark, quiet, room also. A cool cloth applied to the forehead may be of some comfort. If your migraines are severe, you need to see your doctor. He will prescribe prescription strength migraine medicine for you such as,Imitrex. This was the first drug that was developed specifically to treat migraines. Imitrex acts like serotonin and binds itself to the serotonin receptors in the brain. This cause the blood vessels to constrict, therefore relieving the pressure on the brain and the migraine pain. Since Imitrex was developed a few other drugs have been created also. They work in similar ways to Imitrex but have fewer side effects and will cause fewer rebound headaches. Since nausea is a common complication that occurs with a migraine, your doctor may prescribe an anti-emetic medication such as Reglan, Compazine or Phenergan. These medicines do not decrease the pain from a migraine, but they can stop the nausea and vomiting associated with it. Some of these drugs do have the ability to make you relaxed and very sleepy. Being more relaxed can help your pain medicine work better and possibly shorten the duration of your migraine. The best thing you can do for your migraines is to find out what causes them. Keep a diary and try to pinpoint certain triggers that may set off a migraine headache. Some people are overly sensitive to certain perfumes or flowers. Others may develop a migraine after eating certain foods. Your other option is to talk to your doctor about preventive medicines for migraine headaches. Studies have found that certain cardiovascular drugs and certain antidepressant medications have been highly effective in the prevention of migraines. New studies are being done all the time. Who knows, maybe eventually they will find a cure for your migraine headaches. But for now all you can do is try to prevent them or if you feel one coming on, try to treat it as quickly as possible.