While a debilitating headache is one of the most prevalent migraine symptoms, the term “headache” does not adequately describe the whole range of migraine symptoms. No two headaches are the same and some of them do not even entail a headache.
To trace the anatomy of a migraine, we must start in the days and hours leading up to a migraine, when people frequently notice warning signals such as exhaustion, mood swings, sleep disruption, nausea, light and sound sensitivity, or even increased thirst. These warning indicators point to the hypothalamus in the brain.
The hypothalamus is responsible for the internal hormonal balances, circadian rhythms, and water regulation that underpin these symptoms. It has a lot of connections all over the brain and it is more active than usual in the days leading up to a migraine.
The migraine aura, which can include transient visual changes, tingling, or even difficulty speaking, is another common warning sign. These feelings are caused by a change in charge across cell membranes, which causes changes in brain activity and blood flow to spread throughout the brain. We do not know what causes this shift in charge, but it can travel swiftly over the brain’s surface, creating a variety of aura symptoms depending on the location affected. If it passes close enough to the visual cortex, an image or blind spot may extend across the visual field. The trigeminal nerve plays a key role during the headache phase. Touch, temperature, and other sensations are generally transmitted from the skin to most of the face, a portion of the scalp, and some of the blood vessels and layers covering the cerebral cortex by the trigeminal nerve. The trigeminal nerve transmits pain signals once it is engaged. This pain pathway becomes activated during a migraine, lowering the pain threshold. Sensations that are usually pain-free such as coughing, bending over, or light and sound, can become painful.
Migraines are as widespread as they are varied, affecting up to 33% of women and 13% of men at some point throughout their lives. It is a neurological illness that affects many regions of the brain, including the brainstem, cerebral hemispheres, and nerves. But we do not know for sure what causes each phase, why some people get headaches and others do not, why women get migraines so much more than males, or why an individuals’s migraine patterns alter over time.
Hormonal changes are thought to play a role in some of these things: following menopause, when sex hormone swings are less, some women report a large drop in migraine frequency. Meanwhile, these fluctuations increase right before menopause and some women have severe or new headaches.
Migraine sufferers are more prone to depression, panic disorder, sleep difficulties and strokes, among other ailments. The link between migraine and these diseases is likely complicated, reflecting either the effect of migraine on those conditions or vice versa, or their similar genetic base.
Head to our YouTube page to see how one of our Kiseki users managed her migraine with Kiseki.
