Headaches

If you happen to be looking left or right when your car is rear-ended, you could be lucky enough to avoid the headache of whiplash. A new study at the University of Alberta shows that whiplash injuries in low-speed accidents are much less likely if the victim’s head happens to be turned to either side instead of facing front when the vehicle is struck. The research involving neck muscles is giving a solid scientific definition to whiplash that may help identify and establish soft tissue injuries–if any are actually suffered in the course of an accident. Results from the study appear in the November, 2004 issue of Clinical Biomechanics. The findings, based on research begun at the university in 1999, will help clear up the murky definition of whiplash–injuries to the head and neck most commonly suffered in rear-end vehicle … Read more

Middle-aged men and women with a history of migraine and other headaches are more likely to have retinopathy, damage to the retina of the eye which can lead to severe vision problems or blindness, than those without a history of headaches, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For the study, published in the May 15, 2007, issue of Neurology, researchers reviewed the headache history and eye health of 10,902 men and women who participated in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. Participants, who were from communities in Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina, were black and white and between the ages of 51 and 71 at the time of their examination. Twenty-two percent of the participants had a history of migraine or other headaches. Those with a history of headaches were slightly … Read more

Researchers of the heart and headaches at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital are combining efforts to determine if a common heart defect may be the cause of some forms of migraine headaches.Investigators from the Jefferson Heart Institute and the Jefferson Headache Center are enrolling participants in a blinded study to determine if closing a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO), a small hole or flap that can allow blood to flow between the right and left sides of the heart, can stop migraines. In newborns, the PFO closes at or shortly after birth, but in 20 percent of adults the gap remains open to some degree.More than 28 million Americans suffer from migraine headaches. Debilitating migraine headaches cause major disruption in individual’s lives and cost billions of dollars in lost work, school and medical treatment each year. More than one quarter of the … Read more

Combining two different types of treatment for migraine results in better symptom relief than taking either one of the medications, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA.”Migraine is a prevalent, often debilitating disease manifested by attacks of bilateral or unilateral headache and associated symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound,” according to background information in the article. While advances have been made in treatment, results are still often unsatisfactory for many patients. None of the currently available medications taken alone provide broad coverage of the multiple pathogenic processes in migraine, which is thought to involve multiple neural pathways. A multimechanism-targeted therapy may confer advantages over a single therapy.Jan Lewis Brandes, M.D., of the Nashville Neuroscience Group, Nashville, Tenn., and colleagues evaluated the effectiveness and safety of treating migraine by combining the migraine … Read more

A University of Iowa study may provide an explanation for why some people get migraine headaches while others do not. The researchers found that too much of a small protein called RAMP1 appears to “turn up the volume” of a nerve cell receptor’s response to a neuropeptide thought to cause migraines.The neuropeptide is called CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide) and studies have shown that it plays a key role in migraine headaches. In particular, CGRP levels are elevated in the blood during migraine, and drugs that either reduce the levels of CGRP or block its action significantly reduce the pain of migraine headaches. Also, if CGRP is injected into people who are susceptible to migraines, they get a severe headache or a full migraine.”We have shown that this RAMP protein is a key regulator for the action of CGRP,” said Andrew … Read more