Headaches

New research shows women who have weekly migraine are significantly more likely to have a stroke than those with fewer migraines or no migraine at all, but those with lower migraine frequency may face increased risk of heart attacks. The Women’s Health Study involved nearly 28,000 women health professionals in the United States who were 45 and older. The women did not have cerebrovascular disease at the beginning of the study and were followed for an average of 12 years. During that time, 706 cerebrovascular events, 305 heart attacks, and 310 ischemic strokes occurred. Of the 3,568 women with migraine at the start of the study, 65 percent reported migraine less than once a month, 30 percent reported one migraine a month and five percent reported at least weekly migraine. Compared to women without migraine, the study found women who … Read more

Aristotle and Hippocrates believed in the power of images in the brain to enliven the heart and body. Today, research shows they were right. Guided imagery is helping patients use the full range of the body’s healing capacity. Guided imagery is more than listening to relaxing sounds. It’s a learning process to listen to someone’s voice, relax the breathing and consciously direct the ability to imagine. From there, the message is passed along to the body’s endocrine, immune and autonomic nervous systems. Guided imagery has been shown to benefit patients by: Reducing side effects from cancer treatment Reducing fear and anxiety prior to surgery. Managing stress Managing headaches. Studies have shown that guided imagery may aid in reducing the frequency of migraine headaches. Adapted from materials provided by Mayo Clinic.

A few days ago Health Canada advised Canadians about new safety information for carbamazepine, a drug used to treat epilepsy, mania, bipolar disorder and trigeminal neuralgia. Carbamazepine is sold under the more common brand name Tegretol as well as other generic names. Serious and sometimes deadly skin reactions known as Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN) have been known to occur with carbamazepine. This applies to ALL patients treated with carbamazepine. However the risk is approximately 10 times higher in Asian countries than in Western countries. Further, studies have suggested that patients of Asian ancestry may also be at increased risk if they take carbamazepine. There is a genetic test that may be useful in identifying a particular genetic marker in patients.  Patients of Asian ancestry, particularly Han Chinese, may wish to discuss this test with their doctors … Read more

The other day I was watching Mystery Diagnosis on TLC. For those who don’t know what it is Mystery Diagnosis tells the stories of patients with medical mysteries. In each personal story, the patients, doctors and everyone involved discover the importance of being vigilant.  Medicine is often more of an art than a science, and the journey to diagnosis can be a twisted path full of many surprises. Recently I saw an episode that featured a middle age women develop a new daily headache. She had an MRI done which showed a few dots of white matter, but besides that everything was normal.  It was eventually found by a cardiologist that the aura she was also experiencing was due to a Patent Foramen Ovale. She had a hole in her heart that never fully closed. Eventually surgery was done and … Read more

I found an interesting read on migraines and headaches over at http://www.migraineprevention.com/ It discusses that “While the current medical models for migraine pathophysiology include afferent input from the meningeal arteries to the trigeminal sensory nucleus, the effect of any other acute or chronic noxious afferent input from the other divisions of the trigeminal, primarily the mandibular (third) division and how that noxious afferent input effects sensory modulation, has been essentially ignored.” Then “as a result of genetic properties of the host as a result of a pre-sensitization of the sensory nucleus inflammation of the arteries, which is thought to be primarily responsible for the patient’s pain, throbbing and aversion to movement [occur].” The site goes into greater detail and also discusses an elevated sympathetic tone in patients.