Article by Wendy Moyer

Anyone who has experienced a migraine headache knows what pain really is. Sometimes it makes them feel so bad that the only thing they feel they can do is lay down in a dark room and wait until the pain subsides.

Most people who experience a migraine feel a pounding or throbbing pain on only one side of their head. These headaches, which are more common in women than they are in men, typically will last anywhere from four hours up to three days.

They’re often accompanied by a sensitivity to light, smell, and sound. And nausea is often one of the additional side effects.

The National Migraine Association has estimated that approximately 36 million Americans have endured a migraine. Migraines can be challenging to diagnose because their symptoms vary and often resemble sinus headaches, as well as other illnesses.

However, migraine headaches are the symptom of a disease. As opposed to non-migraine types of headaches that are caused when the cranial blood vessels narrow, migraines are caused by an expansion of these blood vessels.

These headaches are classified as either having no pain, mild pain, moderate pain, or severe pain. If a migraine headache is severe it can prevent a person from doing the simplest activities.

What Causes Migraines?

Migraine headaches are caused by abnormal brain activity. They are often triggered by certain foods, stress, or environmental factors. Food additives such as nitrates, nitrites, and monosodium glutamate have been known to elicit migraines. Alcohol and missed meals that cause blood sugar fluctuations can also bring one on.

Migraines can be triggered by a noise, or exposure to a bright light, or certain perfumes, or cigarette smoke. They can also be caused by hormone fluctuations caused by taking birth control pills or by the menstrual cycle.

Often called vasospasms, the inflammatory responses that result from these triggers cause constriction as well as an abnormal dilation of blood vessels in the head.

How Are Migraines Treated?

Currently treatments are being divided into four broad categories: managing the triggers, aborting the attacks, managing the pain, and preventing the migraines.

Prevention and trigger management go hand in hand. They involve noting how your headache behaves and what you were doing before the headache came on.

New medications are also available. Medications that help you to cope with a migraine attack are called interventional. They help to alleviate the nausea, pain, and some other symptoms

Pain management can include both medications that are prescribed by your doctor as well as over-the-counter pain medications. A class of drugs that works for some migraine sufferers is called cerebral vasoconstrictors. If they work for you they will abort the pain.

Treatment for migraines has recently improved. Special diets that are designed to stabilize a person’s blood sugar are often recommended. In addition, a lot of specialists recommend that people should avoid oversleeping because too much sleep can change someone’s normal blood sugar level and this may lead to their getting a headache.

Preventative medications can prevent an attack from even starting, but these medications need to be taken every day. This type of an approach could be beneficial to people who find themselves taking too many interventional medications too often.

Your doctor should prescribe the best type of medication specifically for you.

If you are taking acetaminophen to try to get rid of your migraine, then be careful to take no more than the prescribed amount because an overdose can damage your liver.

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Tagged with: Head • Headaches • migraine • Throbbing

Filed under: Migraine Headache Prevention

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