Have you ever felt a constant but very painful disturbance in a particular area of your head and it just feels like your head should fall off any minute?
Migraines could be particularly very painful, and they mostly occur in one part or side of the head and they are mostly associated with light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, nausea, dizziness and maybe vomiting.
They can go on lasting for several hours and sometimes, it just feels like you want to cut off your head and detach it from your neck due to the amount of pain it brings alongside it. Migraines mostly begin in childhood and last till adulthood and it is a neurological disease.
Here are some facts that you need to know to help yourself and also your loved ones who might be experiencing this illness.
- Migraine is the 6th most incapacitating illness in the entire world. Most people with migraines can’t tend to function very well at the time it hits because like most illnesses, it renders the body incapacitated and not functional in carrying out its duties. So please don’t trivialize the pain. Meet a physician immediately if you start noticing the signs.
- Migraine isn’t just a bad headache, or a pain gone bad, it is a neurological disease. It is a severely painful neurological disease that most times, usually reoccurs and it majority affects only one part of the head and not the entire length of the head.
Migraines aren’t caused by mental illnesses or because of the lack of blood flow to a particular part of the head. Migraines are as a result of a genetic neural disorder gotten from either one parent or from both parents.
- Women are the most likely victims of this illness: Women are mostly on the receiving end of this illnesses and are mostly prone to having this life long illness. Likewise, most veterans and soldiers that have returned from home are likely to experience this life long illness. This is because most of them have experienced a combat field related traumatic brain and/or concussion.
- There are several triggers for migraines and they include exposure to excessively loud noise, irregular sleep patterns, insensitivity to some certain kinds of food, exposure to bright lights.
Stress may or may not be a direct trigger for migraines. But it can cause a trigger leading to migraines. For example, stress can make you have some sleepless nights changing your sleep pattern and then directly causing migraines.
- The exact cause of migraine is not yet known. All that is known about these diseases are the triggers. Most researches and scientists are yet to discover the exact cause of the disease.
- Migraine is a chronic disease that if not managed properly can shorten the lifespan of an individual. Most individuals experience chronic migraine headache sometimes for about 15 or more days in a month. People who experience migraines may have sleep disorders and likewise depression.
- Before attaining puberty, boys are more affected than girls but after puberty, there is a switch. The risk of having migraine and the ratio of individuals having migraines are larger in ladies than in men. The more the females have migraine, the more their estrogen level becomes abnormal and this will affect their ovulation and invariably their fertility.
- There are some adverse complications that can be caused by migraines and this includes drug overuse. Due to the intense and very painful feeling associated with Migraines, some people would be forced to get over the counter top drugs which they may misuse because there are no doctor’s prescription for such drugs and so hence the tendency of drug misuse comes in.
Misuse of these drugs will cause the pain to stop but will induce headaches.
- There is something known as STATUS MIGRAINOSUS. People who experience this kind of migraine have it for three days or more. This is a very severe kind of migraine and it is very painful too.
- Don’t be unsympathetic towards those having migraines. Whenever the attack starts, please try to take them away from the trigger to allow them get a little bit of relief and they will be grateful to you for it.
- Exercising regularly can help reduce the occurrence of migraines and even prevent its occurrence all together. Regular aerobic exercises can help out in this aspect. Exercises such as walking, running, cyclic, swimming, and regular stretches will help out a great deal in this aspect.
Although, one should be very careful during warm-up not to overdo it. This is because overdoing it can also cause severe pains and headaches and also trigger a severe migraine attack.
- Obesity is also a risk factor and can likewise be a trigger for migraine attacks. This is one reason why exercises are actually advised because apart from keeping your blood flow regular and constant, it also keeps your body weight in check and help reduce the risk of becoming obese.
- To prevent an attack of migraines, keep and maintain your schedules such as your regular sleep patterns, stress patterns and likewise your feeding patterns. Try to keep a stress-free day at all cost and try to avoid that which would cause you to go into overdrive.
- Most people having migraines are simply learning to cope with their illnesses. This is because there is no permanent treatment for migraines, so patients simply learn to cope with the disease.
- As a person who has migraines tend to reach the age of 30 and above, he or she tends to experience the peak pain of migraine. After this peak, there will appear some sort of gradual decline in the occurrence of the migraine attacks experienced by the person.
- Alcoholic drinks such as alcoholic wines, and drinks with a high amount of caffeine have been known to trigger migraine attacks.
- Prolonged fasting can likewise be a trigger for migraines as well. Also skipping meals such as breakfast (most especially) can also trigger a migraine attack.
If experiencing any of the symptoms of migraine, instead of taking an over-the-counter drug(s), please ensure that you speak to your physician about it and for the pain relievers, please also try to get a doctor’s prescription before getting them as you may likely tend to react to a drug not prescribed by your doctor.
If you are experiencing an intolerance to a drug prescribed to you, you can also speak to your doctor about appropriate alternative changes and/or replacements and also dosages so as to help you feel better and relieved.
