Half of people with migraines have never been diagnosed because they haven’t sought medical help, they have more than one type of headache, or their primary care doctor missed the diagnosis. But identifying a migraine should get easier for docs: A team of US physicians recently reviewed the International Headache Society’s classic diagnostic criteria for migraines and recommended that the symptom checklist be shorter and more precise—and therefore easier for busy physicians to get through. In fact, the team found that you or your doctor can pick up a significant clue by asking just one question: Do you have nausea along with your headaches? If you answered yes, it’s more likely that your headaches are migraines.
What is a migraine?
A migraine is what’s called a primary headache, meaning it’s not just a symptom of another disorder such as a sinus condition or a head injury (see “Headache Primer,” below). Scientists still aren’t sure what’s behind migraines, but they do know that in people who get these headaches, sensory nerves overreact to various triggers, first causing constriction and then dilation of the blood vessels in the brain. The result is pulsing, often incapacitating head pain that typically lasts a day and is often accompanied by nausea and extreme sensitivity to light and sound. There are two subsets of migraines—migraines with auras (also called classic migraines) and migraines without auras (common migraines). They both feel the same, but the former arrives after a warning. The term aura comes from the Greek word for wind. Just as wind may pick up before a storm, an aura of neurological symptoms (such as flashing lights, zigzag patterns, blind spots in your vision, or, less frequently, tingling or pins and needles in your limbs) may show up 15 minutes to an hour prior to a migraine. If you haven’t gotten relief when you treated your tension headache with painkillers or your sinus headache with allergy medication, it’s likely you have migraines. Make an appointment with your family doctor for a migraine assessment. If he doesn’t treat migraines, look for one who does (such as a neurologist). Odds are, you’ll get more than a diagnosis—you’ll finally get relief.[pagebreak] There are just three types of “primary” headaches (clinical conditions in and of themselves, not merely symptoms of other problems): migraine, tension, and cluster. Use this guide, created by the FDA, to help distinguish among the three—and ID your particular ache.
Did you know?
The term migraine comes from the Greek word hemicrania, which means “half of the head.” Seventy percent of migraine sufferers experience pain on just one side of their head. More from Prevention: 8 Ways To Clobber A Migraine
