'Brain freeze' is a nearly universal experience -- almost everyone has felt the near-instantaneous headache brought on by a bite of ice cream or slurp of ice-cold soda on the upper palate. However, scientists are still at a loss to explain this phenomenon. Since migraine sufferers are more likely to experience brain freeze than people who don't have this often-debilitating condition, brain freeze may sh... (read more)
As if having migraine headaches weren’t enough of a burden, a new study finds that women with migraines are also more likely to develop depression — about 40% more likely than women who have no history of the headaches. The study found that even women whose migraines had ceased in the previous year had a higher risk of becoming depressed than migraine-free women. For the study, researchers led ... (read more)
Gluten-free products are all the rage these days, but many health-conscious eaters who buy them may be wasting their money, the authors of a new commentary in Annals of Internal Medicine suggest. Going gluten-free is necessary for people with celiac disease, an autoimmune condition triggered by gluten, which is found in wheat, barley and rye. The disease causes inflammation in the small intestine and can lead ... (read more)
People who get painful migraine headaches may be at a higher risk for developing clinical depression, suggests a new study from Canada. The research, published in the journal Headache, also hints that the relationship may go both ways, and people with clinical depression could have a higher risk of developing migraines, but that finding could have been due to chance, the researchers say. Nonetheless, lead auth... (read more)
Despite concerns that water pressure and other stresses might promote headaches, professional scuba divers may actually get fewer of the painful attacks, overall, than other healthy people, say Italian researchers. Published in the journal Headache, their study compared the number of "cephalalgia attacks" -- headaches of all kinds -- experienced by 201 male professional divers and a control group of heal... (read more)
Hallucinated scents such as a burning or rotten smell, or even the scent of foie gras, can be a part of the "aura" that some people perceive before a migraine attack, although it is rare, according to a U.S. study. About 30 percent of people with recurrent migraines have sensory disturbances shortly before their headache hits, known as aura, but these are usually visual, such as flashes of light or bl... (read more)
Regular aerobic exercise worked just as well as relaxation therapy or the antiepileptic drug topiramate in preventing migraine headaches in a Swedish trial. "This non-pharmacological approach may therefore be an option for the prophylactic treatment of migraine in patients who do not benefit from or do not want daily medication," wrote Dr. Emma Varkey and her colleagues from the Institute of Neur... (read more)
Cluster headaches can be confused with migraines. Oftentimes, they are episodic on one side of the head and can cause excruciating pain. Migraines are mostly in women, however, while cluster headaches are usually in men. The cause of cluster headaches is thought to be different than that of migraines. Thus, the treatment for a sudden onset cluster headache should be looked at differently.... (read more)
A headache or cephalalgia is pain anywhere in the region of the head or neck. It can be a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and neck. The brain tissue itself is not sensitive to pain because it lacks pain receptors. Rather, the pain is caused by disturbance of the pain-sensitive structures around the brain. Several areas of the head and neck have these pain-sensitive structures, which are the cranium (the periosteum of the skull, muscles, nerves, arteries and veins, subcutaneous tissues, eyes, ears, sinuses and mucous membranes).
There are a number of different classification systems for headaches. The most well-recognized is that of the International Headache Society. Treatment of a headache depends on the underlying etiology or cause, but commonly involves analgesics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headache
© 2012 Healthnoise — All rights reserved.