Description
Migraines deserve the attention they receive; one headache can put your life "on hold" for a few hours or several days. Migraine is responsible for more job absenteeism and disrupted family life than any other headache typeAccording to estimates, approximately 29.5 million people in the United States suffer from migraines. Four out of five of them report a family history of migraine, but scientists are not sure if this is genetic or a family predisposition. Some experts consider migraine to be an inherited malfunction of the brainŭs normal pain-generating system.
Women experience migraines at least three times more often than men do, and this may be due to hormonal influences. While migraines occur in childhood, they generally strike in the twenties or thirties.
Is there a migraine personality? Experts do not agree on this issue, and they can only draw conclusions based on the people who actually seek their help. Many migraine sufferers, however, have been described as perfectionists, high-strung, conscientious, orderly, analytical and critical. Famous migraineurs include Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Cervantes, Pascal, Nietzsche, Tchaikovsky, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Karl Marx and George Bernard Shaw ŭ and, actor/director Lee Grant, Chicago Bulls basketball player Scottie Pippen, Denver Bronco football player Terrell Davis, golfer Fred Couples and New York Yankee baseball player Joe Girardi.
The term migraine is originally derived from the Greek word hemicrania, which means "half of the head." And, for 70 percent of migraine sufferers, the headache is unilateral or occurring on one side. Migraine is considered a vascular headache because it is associated with changes in the size of the arteries in and outside of the brain. Prompted by biochemical changes in the brain, one of the larger nerve branches (the trigeminal nerve) in your head triggers a chain reaction: the changes in serotonin in the blood vessels and the brain lead to shifts of blood flow, bypassing the capillaries and going through shunts to the veins. The distention of these vessels contributes to the pain of migraine. The nerves around the blood vessels release chemicals which cause a sterile inflammation eliciting pain signals into the brain.
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