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Findings published in Nature Neuroscience help explain why light makes Migraine Headaches worse. 

Ask anyone who suffers from migraine headaches what they do when they're having an attack, and you're likely to hear "go into a dark room." And although it's long been known that light makes migraines worse, the reason why has been unclear. 

Migraine is a recurring, episodic neurological disorder characterized as throbbing headache that is commonly associated with a variety of other symptoms (for example, nausea, vomiting, irritability and fatigue).  Migraines are chronic headaches that can cause significant pain for hours or even days. Symptoms can be so severe that all you can think about is finding a dark, quiet place to lie down.

For light to make pain worse, the pathways have to converge somewhere, thought the researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.  Exacerbation of migraine headache by light is prevalent among blind individuals. Light can increase the electrical activity in neurons.

One expert said these findings should put to rest any suggestion that patients exaggerate their sensitivity to light; they are not whining or imagining their symptoms.

"A neural mechanism for exacerbation of headache by light."
Rodrigo Noseda, Vanessa Kainz, Moshe Jakubowski, Joshua J Gooley, Clifford B Saper, Kathleen Digre & Rami Burstein.
Nature Neuroscience, Advance online publication 10 January 2010.
DOI:10.1038/nn.2475

 

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According to Medilexicon's medical dictionary:

Cluster headache is "possibly due to a hypersensitivity to histamine; characterized by recurrent, severe, unilateral orbitotemporal headaches associated with ipsilateral photophobia, lacrimation, and nasal congestion."

Cluster headaches (also used in singular: headache), also nicknamed suicide headaches, occur several times a day, they come on unexpectedly, do not last long, and are generally very painful. The pain is usually intense, and sometimes only on one side of the head. Frequently, the sufferer also feels pain around the eye.

A cluster-headache sufferer can wake up during the night because of the pain. Often, this occurs at the same time each night. The eye on the painful side of the head may be reddened and watery. The individual's nose may be runny or blocked on the side of the nose where the pain is.

Read more here.

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A presentation by the American Heart Association's (AHA) annual Scientific Sessions in Orlando revealed the pooling results from 21 studies, involving 622,381 men and women, to conclude that the risk of stroke for those with migraines is 2.3 times those without.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have affirmed that migraine headaches are associated with more than twofold higher chances of the most common kind of stroke: those occurring when blood supply to the brain is suddenly cut off by the buildup of plaque or a blood clot.

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If you're one of the nearly 30 million Americans* who suffers from migraine headaches, you now have a new way to fight them. This month, a new drug is expected to land in pharmacies that combines two existing migraine drugs.

Find out more here.

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