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Your Information Source for Migraines

There are many reasons why you may be on an information search regarding migraines. You may suffer from migraines. Someone you know and care about may suffer from migraines. You may have just had a family member or yourself diagnosed as having migraines, or you could be a student doing a research paper on migraines. Regardless of why you are researching the topic of migraines there is plenty of information to be had on the subject.

The medical disorder, migraine is known as a neurological syndrome. The main characteristic that most individuals encounter is painful headaches, and nausea. This common condition affects more women than it does men.

The pain from the migraine is generally located on one side of the head and can be described as throbbing or pulsating in nature. The headache usually will last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours in duration and can be moderate to severe in intensity. There can be other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting or sensitivity to light or sound that accompany the headache.

There is another aspect of migraines and that is the presence of an "aura" in at least 1/3 of those who experience migraines. An aura is serious of complaints that occur prior to the onset of the migraine that can include the appearance of bright lights, zigzag lines, or distortions of shapes in various colors and sizes that appear in the line of vision. The vision field may also decrease and appear like tunnel vision or a curtain-like effect over one eye or dark spots that slowly spread. There may be auditory changes such as hearing of voices, or sounds in the environment such as buzzing. They may experience strange smells, or feelings of numbness or tingling on one side of the face or arms and legs. They may get a sense of being separated from one's own body or a feeling like their arms and legs are moving independently from the body. They may feel anxiety, or fear during the aura or a weakness or unsteadiness. Saliva may collect at the corners of their mouth. Sometimes individuals experiencing an aura are unable to understand or comprehend words that are spoken to them during the aura. They may become extremely tired, sweat profusely or feel warmth throughout the body.

By far, the most common form of migraines occurs without auras. Besides the migraines with or without aura there are other ways of describing migraines such as familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM), which are those, which are caused by ion channel mutations. Individuals with this type of migraine usually experience limb weakness on one side of the body, with visual, sensory or speech difficulties. Another type of migraine is the abdominal migraine, which is where children have symptoms of migraines without the head pain. Symptoms are nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain that lasts from 1 to 72 hours.

Acephalgic migraine and menstrual migraine are two other types of migraines. Acephalgic migraines are those in which the individual usually experiences auras but do not experience the headache. Menstrual migraines have two characteristics the menstrual related migraine (MRM) and the pure menstrual migraine (PMM). The MRM is moderate to severe in pain intensity and occurs around the time of the monthly period and at other times too. The PMM occurs only around the time of the woman's monthly period.