Migraine Treatment, Causes, Types, Symptoms, Medication And Facts

Migraines are common. Pregnancy is common as well. Having pregnancy affect your migraines or migraines affect you pregnancy is fairly common as well. In fact millions of pregnant women need to cope with migraines along with all the other changes to their overall health that pregnancy entails.

Causes
Doctors and scientists are pretty sure about the causes of pregnancy but the exact cause of migraines has eluded them thus far. We do know that migraines bring changes to the nervous system, brain chemistry and blood flow in the brain and else where in the body. Just what is a cause and what is an effect remains to be sorted out.

For some reason brain cells become agitated, which release substances called neuropeptides in the brain, these substances tend to irritate blood vessels found on the surface of the brain. The irritated blood vessels swell up and triggers pain and other symptoms that are characteristic of migraines.

So what does pregnancy have to do with this scenario? The short answer is estrogen. Estrogen levels change during pregnancy (as well as menopause and menstruation) and estrogen has some kind of effect on migraine headaches. Another brain chemical called serotonin also seems to play an important part in migraine episodes.

A Migraine Diary
Even if you aren’t pregnant a healthcare professional may advise you to keep a diary of migraine related incidents in an attempt to uncover what triggers migraines in you. Because hormone levels are profoundly altered by pregnancy tracking what is going on with the health of your body in general is a good idea and may help you cope with or prevent a migraine or two.

Pregnancy may remind you that you are what you eat and may even make you wonder what you are when you crave certain foods that you have never craved before. It shouldn’t be completely surprising that certain foods can have a profound affect on migraines as well. It may seem that pregnancy has turned your entire endocrine and hormonal systems topsy turvy. It’s advisable to try to sort out this new and temporary reality by tracking how you feel and what you eat more carefully.

So that even though you crave chocolate or caffeinated beverages you may have to avoid them. You may also be trying to keep your weight down by using artificial sweeteners. Unfortunately many of those substances are suspected of triggering migraines too.

A diary may also convince you that stress, skipping meals and lack of sleep need to be avoided more than ever before if you want to keep the migraines at bay.

Another Thing to or Two to Keep in Mind
A pregnancy complication called preeclampsia may also cause headaches. You shouldn’t assume that your intense headache is a migraine headache without discussing your condition with a doctor first. This discussion should include information about your diet, over-the-counter medications you take and family history as well. Don’t assume that testing for migraines will involve CT scan or radiological test because these can harm the fetus.

Certain foods have long been suspected of causing or intensifying migraine headaches. Research into this issue has verified some of the suspicions regarding certain foods or drinks and is continuing to uncover the reasons for this phenomenon.

Although foods are obvious causes for migraine headaches and other kinds of headaches, solutions to the problems caused by food to migraine sufferers are a little more complex than that. Overall dietary habits have a definite role to play as well as habits that relates to exercise.

Fasting and the frequency of snacking and taking meals can affect how many migraines a person experiences. One management techniques that can help in determining just what these are, is keeping a diary of when one eats and when one skips meals and the kind of snacks that one indulges in. Keeping a diary of what you eat will also help to identify the particular foods that seemed to trigger migraine episodes.

Some of the more common trigger foods and the particular substances that are sometimes found within them are listed below.

The number one culprit for migraine onset would appear to be aged cheese. Within cheese itself the cause is a substance called tyramine. Tyramine occurs naturally in a number of foods. It is the result of the chemical reaction that breaks down, protein as a food ages. The longer the aging process the greater of the amount of tyramine.

Since the creation of cheese is a complex process it is difficult to predict with precise accuracy how much of this chemical will occur in a given piece of cheese. Bacteria and the fermenting process itself may also have a role to play. Patients who take MAO (monoamine oxidase) inhibitor medications for migraines should avoid foods suspected of containing tyramine all together. The list of these foods can be expanded beyond cheese to include red wine, alcoholic beverages and highly processed meats.

Alcohol itself may also have a profound effect on headaches. We are not talking about the morning after here at all. Scientists blame headaches attributed to very moderate consumption of alcohol to impurities found in the alcohol. Byproducts of the alcohol metabolizing process in your body are complex and these also can cause headaches such as migraines. The most commonly identified migraine traders include champagne beer whisky and wine.

The food additives are another very common cause of migraine headaches. The food additives such as nitrate and nitrite dilate your blood vessels which triggers headaches. Migraines in particular are associated with changes in the vascular system.

Perhaps the most surprising trigger of headaches for some people is the temperature of the food they eat. Many of us have experienced the classic headache that briefly occurs when we eat some ice cream too fast, but this goes beyond that phenomenon. At least 90% of migraine patients who responded to a recent survey reported a sensitivity to cold foods as a migraine trigger upon occasions.

The best advice is to take care with protein and additive rich foods and alcohol and try to keep a diary of the foods and drinks you consume to pinpoint the cause of your migraines.