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Usual term misused by most for frequent
headaches . Whereas headache can be caused by mire than 700 causes.
Frequent attacks of headache, migraine or
non-migraine variety, have proved to be a pain in neck not only
for the patients who have it, but also for the physicians who treat
them. In this small write-up, we shall limit discussion to the migraine
headache.
What is migraine headache?
Well, migraine headache has been described
as an episodic, paroxysmal headache, usually but not necessarily
affecting one side of the head; which may or may not be associated
with giddiness, nausea, vomiting or visual impairment. The painful
episode of migraine is usually intense and lasting for half an hour
to over a couple of days.
The Cause: How does it occur?
The exact cause often remains unknown.
It has been proved that migraine is a vascular disorder. Due to
some triggering factors, varying from person to person, there is
some kind of vasoconstriction and vasodilatation of the branches
of the carotid artery ( the major neck blood vessel) which leads
to typical throbbing and congestive attack of headache.
While the exact causation in unknown, it has been observed in practice
that migraine is often psychosomatic in origin. There are migraine
personality and we have observed in a study of a series of migraine
patients at our center, that, there is also a common thread in the
migraine personality type.
Many independent studies at various
institutes have also shown that most migraine sufferers show one
or many of the following behavioral patter : conscientiousness,
fastidiousness, rigidity of views, constant conflict between the
environment and self, high level of expectation.
Migraine sufferers are more females
than males. However, we are observing a shift. Often observed to
be running in the family, showing hereditary links.
The symptomatology of migraine:
Migraine headache is a subjective
experience. The commonly described pain is typically throbbing,
bursting, hammering, or shattering. The pain might start on one
side or a spot on the head and spreading to any other place. Ocular
areas often affected. The pain is usually severe, intense and tends
to be associated with nausea, giddiness and generalized sense of
malaise. Many patients feel relieved if there is vomiting. The episodes
of pain are periodic, may be weekly, daily , fortnightly, monthly
or irregular.
Migraine and other similar headaches:
Migraine headache should be differentiated
from other similar painful conditions where the headache could be
due to high blood pressure, sinusitis, Trigeminal neuralgia, temporal
arteritis, tension headache, etc. A good clinician can help the
patient arrive to a correct diagnosis.
Homoeopathic treatment for Migraine:
Migraine has been believed to be an
obstinate condition to treat. However, it is a common experience
of the practitioners of homoeopathic system of medicine that migraine
is definitely treatable and curable in majority of cases.The homoeopathic
approach to the treatment of migraine patients is more individualistic.
This means, homoeopathy believes that migraine is a personality
disorder and hence the treatment should be determined only on the
basis of in-depth study of the patients' personality. This approach
helps treating most cases of migraine successfully.Homoeopathy treatment
is essentially safe and absolutely harmless, which may be taken
along with any other medicine, if required.
Suggested Investigations - Routine Blood, LFT,
CT Scan Brain, EEG |
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