You Can Have a Migraine Without a Headache
Migraine is an intense throbbing or pulsing headache, it's commonly in one area of the head but it could be in both.
The word migraine derives from the Greek word ‘hemicrania’ which means ‘half the skull’. In 400 BC Hippocrates described in detail the occurrence of migraine attacks, including the visual disturbances during migraine aura and the relief from vomiting. The word was later established by the Greek physician Galen of Pergamon.
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Migraine is an extraordinarily prevalent neurological disease, affecting 1 billion people worldwide.
Everyone either knows someone who suffers from migraine, or struggles with migraine themselves.
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- Migraine rated number 8 for top disabling medical conditions and is the 3rd most prevalent illness in the world.
- Amazingly, 12% of the population – including children – suffers from migraine.
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FIFTY PERCENT OF PEOPLE WITH MIGRAINES DON'T REALIZE THEY HAVE THEM.
- Many people mistakenly assume they're having tension headaches
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Most people don’t realize how serious and incapacitating migraine can be.
- While most sufferers experience attacks once or twice a month, more than 4 million people have chronic daily migraine, with at least 15 migraine days per month.
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- Depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances are common for those with chronic migraine.
· Several studies have now linked migraines with an increased risk for suicide attempts and even completed suicide. The risk may be even higher among people with migraine with aura or the flashes of light and other sensory symptoms that can accompany the headaches.
· It's not clear why migraines and suicide are related, but depression and migraine could share a similar biology.
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Migraine disproportionatelyaffects women.
- Three times as many women as men suffer from migraine in adulthood.
- About half of female sufferers have more than one attack each month, and a quarter experience 4 or more severe attacks per month.
- More severe and more frequent attacks often result from fluctuations in estrogen levels.
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SMOKERS ARE AT HIGHER RISK FOR the worst type of HEADACHE.
Only 1 in 1,000 people get cluster headaches, but they happen to smokers more often.
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Celebrities and historical figures with Migraine disease include, among many:
President, and architect of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson;
the great painters Vincent Van Gogh, George Seurat (after which is named the Seurat effect, a current medical term often used to describe the visual phenomena of scintillating aura aka scotoma), and Claude Monet;
Great authors Virginia Woolfe, Cervantes (best known as the author of the classic, 'Don Quixote'), and Lewis Carroll who's Migraines are said to have influenced his gifts of literature still so popular today; leaders such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon
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Even philosophers get headaches. The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, suffered from debilitating migraines for much of his life – often two or three a week. Doctors today think the chances are high that he had a brain tumour which caused these migraines and that explained his reasonably early death at the age of 56.
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You Can Predict a Migraine
Most people experience early warning signs of an impending attack. Premonitions such as strange food cravings, mood swings, and uncontrollable yawning can occur up to 24 hours in advance. Immediately beforehand, one in five migraine sufferers will have sensory symptoms known as "aura." These include flashing lights, blind spots, numbness, or the feeling of being grabbed.
These experiences last to 10 to 30 minutes.
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You Can Have a Migraine Without a Headache
If you have aura-like symptoms but no throbbing head pain, this may still be a migraine. Other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and constipation. Some experts think a range of otherwise unexplained signs—such as fever, dizziness, or pain—could also be headache-free migraines.
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