A new study suggests that those who often experience migraines are at risk of permanent changes or damage to the brain especially if you are experiencing "migraine with aura," a group of researchers concludes after reviewing 19 previous studies.
Migraine with aura is a new term describing a rare type of migraine affecting 20 percent of the people who suffers from headaches. Aura is something a person experiences even before the pain happens. The headache usually last up to 72 hours but the symptoms shows 30 minutes before the actual headache. These symptoms include nausea, vomiting, irritability, low blood pressure, sensitivity to lights, sounds, or motions, and dark circles in the eye.
When pain targets the signal-carrying white matter of the brain and restructures it. The researchers found that those who suffer from migraine with aura were about 1.7 times likely to have such abnormalities compared to those who don't have migraine.
However, researchers are yet to find how migraine attacks are able to restructure the white matter of the brain and the tissues around it. They have used magnetic resonance imagery to monitor the changes in the brain before and after the migraine attacks. For now, patients should not be too alarmed yet.
“Part of the message I hope to communicate here is: If you have migraine with aura and you have white-matter lesions, they’re probably not a cause of concern,” said study coauthor Dr. Richard B. Lipton, a neurologist who heads the Montefiore Headache Center in the Bronx, N.Y., told the L.A Times.
Patients with this condition usually complains how it affects their work and their wallet due to lost work hours and high medical fees.
The researchers reviewed 19 migraine-related studies and found varying results which have made it difficult for them to make a comprehensive analysis. One study used a small sample as basis and monitored the patients for less than nine years while 13 of them have largely skewed samples making it difficult to generalize. Even the range of the white-matter abnormalities found among participants is too high between four percent to 59 percent.
The only information which they have enough data is the process of using therapies to reduce the episode of migraine attacks especially those who are at also at risk to stroke.
“If you have migraine with aura, certainly you shouldn’t smoke,” Lipton said to the L.A Times. “Certainly, if you are going to use oral contraceptives, you should use the lowest possible hormonal dose. If you have other stroke risk factors such as hypertension or diabetes or high cholesterol, it becomes particularly important to manage those risk factors.”
