Headaches
Radioactive medicine without the nuclear headache
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A made-in-Canada solution to our medical-isotope problem could come from a machine with a name that could have been pulled straight from the pages of a science fiction novel: the cyclotron.
“It was really pooh-poohed, this idea of using cyclotrons; they said there was no way we could produce enough in a commercially meaningful way,” says John Wilson, the cyclotron facilities manager at the University of Alberta’s Cross Cancer Institute.
In mid-2010, scientists at the University of Sherbrooke and the University of Alberta made technetium-99m, the most commonly used medical isotope, without a nuclear reactor. Last fall, the Alberta scientists began putting the cyclotron-produced technetium-99m through its paces, testing it in animals and humans, and found that the medical scans looked the same as those done using the regular stuff.
Use a Headache Diary to Aid Migraine Headache Treatment
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Migraine sufferers know that the symptoms of migraine headaches can last for hours or even days. Finding a migraine headache treatment is often a priority for sufferers. One strategy for dealing with migraines is to attempt to identify the causes of migraine headaches. This can often be accomplished using a headache diary.
Migraine Triggers
Doctors know that migraines can be triggered by a variety of factors. The Mayo Clinic website lists these factors, which include:
* hormonal changes (in women),
* foods (for example, alcohol, aged cheeses, chocolate, monosodium glutamate, proceeded foods)
* stress,
* sensory stimuli (bright lights or sun glare, loud sounds, strange smells),
* changes in waking and sleeping patterns (too much or not enough sleep),
* physical factors (intense exercise or sexual activity),
* changes in the environment (changes in weather or the barometric pressure), or
* medications.
Headache Relief With Useful Home Remedies for Headache
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Headache can affect just anybody and everybody. It is pain in the head, which involves the area located above the eyes or the ears, behind the head or in the back of the upper neck. The muscles or blood vessels of the head, neck area swell, tighten, or undergo other changes that put pressure on the surrounding nerves and cause a headache.
What are the types of headaches?
There are two types of headaches -
1. primary headaches – accounts for 90% of all headaches. This is not related to any other disease. There are three types of primary headache –
Stress Headache Relief
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A matter that causes significant amounts of health issues among modern Americans is considered to be stress.Stress headache is considered to be one such issue.Although stress headaches may sound relatively simple, in addition to the current effects many long term health problems are associated with it. These stress headaches will be able to put the individual in psychological disorders as well as physical disorders.He/she will find it very difficult if not nearly impossible, to carry the daily responsibilities at work due to the ineffectiveness caused in the person’s day to day life.
Stress headaches can occur on a daily basis or in an episodic course.Tension headaches and daily headaches are terms that are used to refer to these stress headaches.Mostly amongst middle aged women these kinds of headaches are common and will cause extremely irritating effects.
tarting off gradually these stress headaches will eventually grow in to a part of the individual?s life and will become a major problem.However, these stress headaches will tend to be moderate or mild and they will hardly develop into a more severe state.Symptoms of stress headaches can be identified as headache in early morning, muscle pains, chronic fatigue, occasional dizziness, loss of concentration, difficulty in falling asleep and sleeping and also loss of hearing or vision.
Migraine and Increased Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: Migraine Frequency Plays a Role
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Women who have migraines with aura may be more likely to have a stroke or heart attack than women who don’t have the condition, and the association varies by migraine frequency, according to research published in the June 24, 2009, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. An aura is a visual or other sensory disturbance that occurs before the migraine starts, such as seeing bright lights.
The study found that women with migraine with aura whose migraines occur at least once a week are more than four times as likely to have a stroke as women who do not have migraines. Women with migraine with aura who have migraines less than once a month were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack and nearly twice as likely to have had heart procedures such as coronary artery bypass surgery or angioplasty. In contrast, women who had migraines with aura once a month had no increased risk of stroke or heart problems.
“These results should be interpreted with caution, since the number of migraine and migraine features were self-reported and there were relatively low numbers of stroke and heart problems in the large study group,” said study author and member of the American Academy of Neurology Tobias Kurth, MD, ScD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and INSERM, the French national research institute. “Nonetheless, more research is needed to determine how and why these differences occur and whether preventing migraines could reduce the risk of stroke and heart problems.”
Migraine ups risk of high BP during pregnancy
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New research suggests that women who suffer migraine headaches are at increased risk for developing high blood pressure during pregnancy, a condition known as gestational hypertension, as well as preeclampsia—a condition of pregnancy marked by high blood pressure, fluid retention and protein in urine.
Several studies have looked at the link between migraine and high blood pressure during pregnancy, but due to their “methodological weaknesses” these studies have provided only weak evidence of the association between migraine and onset of high blood pressure in pregnancy, Dr. Fabio Facchinetti, from the University of Modena, Italy, and colleagues explain in the medical journal Cephalalgia.
To investigate further, they studied 702 pregnant women with normal blood pressure who were seen at clinics in Northern Italy.
Link between migranes and sleep disorders in children
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Children with a migraine headache are more likely to have sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and lack of sleep, than children without a migraine, according to a research abstract on the effects of headaches on children’s sleep patterns that will be presented on Tuesday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
For this study, 90 children with headache and sleep problems underwent a polysomnogram, a sleep test that monitors the brain, eye movements, muscle activity, heart rhythm, and breathing. Of the participants, 60 had a migraine, 11 had a chronic daily headache, six had a tension headache and 13 had a non-specific headache.
The study found the children with a migraine were twice as likely as the other children in the study to have OSA. A sleep-related breathing disorder (SRBD) was found in 56 percent of the children with a migraine versus 30 percent of the children with a non-migraine headache. A severe migraine was also associated with shorter total sleep time, longer total time to fall asleep, and shorter REM sleep.
Office initiative reduces headaches and neck and shoulder pain by more than 40 percent
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Office staff who took part in an eight-month workplace initiative reported that headaches and neck and shoulder pain fell by more than 40 per cent and their use of painkillers halved, according to research published in the May issue of Cephalalgia.
They also reported that pain levels were less severe at the end of the study than at the start.
Italian researchers compared 169 staff in Turin’s registry and tax offices with 175 colleagues who hadn’t taken part in the educational and physical programme. Using daily diaries completed by both groups, they compared the baseline results for months one and two of the study with months seven and eight to see if there had been any changes. The study group started following the programme in month three.
PTSD common in chronic migraine sufferers
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Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is more common in people who suffer from chronic migraine headache than in those with episodic migraine headache, research suggests.
“Recent data suggest that PTSD may be more common in headache sufferers than in the general population,” Dr. B. Lee Peterlin, of Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and colleagues note in the journal Headache.
They assessed the relative frequency of PTSD in 32 patients with episodic migraine and 28 with chronic migraine. People with chronic migraine typically have headaches on 15 or more days a month, while people with episodic migraine have fewer than 15 days of headache per month.
Botulinum Toxin Effective in Many Neurological Disorders, Not Headache
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New guidelines developed by the American Academy of Neurology confirm that the drug botulinum toxin is safe and effective for treating cervical dystonia, a condition of involuntary head tilt or neck movement, spasticity and other forms of muscle overactivity that interfere with movement in adults and children with an upper motor neuron syndrome, and excessive sweating of the armpits and hands. Botulinum toxin may also be used in hemifacial spasm (involuntary facial contractions), blepharospasm, (involuntary eye closure), some voice disorders (adductor laryngeal dystonia), focal limb dystonias (such as writer’s cramp), essential tremor and some forms of spastic bladder disorders.
This guidelines project was chaired by David M. Simpson, MD, Professor of Neurology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. To develop the guidelines, the authors reviewed and analyzed systematically all available scientific studies on the topic. The guidelines appear in the May 6, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Traditional acupuncture may ease migraines
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Acupuncture, as practiced in traditional Chinese medicine, may offer some relief from migraine pain, a new study suggests.
Italian researchers found that regular treatments with “true” acupuncture helped improve symptoms in 32 patients whose migraines had been resistant to standard preventive medication.
Moreover, the therapy worked better than two forms of “sham” acupuncture used for comparison, the researchers report in the medical journal Headache.
Frovatriptan may prevent puncture-related headache
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Frovatriptan, used to prevent and treat migraine headaches, may also be of use in preventing post-dural puncture headache, according to Italian researchers.
In the journal Cephalalgia, Dr. Gennaro Bussone of Istituto Nazionale Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan and colleagues note that post-dural puncture headache is associated with the loss of CSF following dural puncture and subsequent shifts in cranial contents.
Preventive migraine therapy raises quality of life
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The results of a study published in the medical journal Cephalalgia indicate that preventive migraine therapy with nadolol or topiramate significantly improves the quality of life of patients with migraine, although their quality of life still remains below the average level.
Nadolol, sold in the U.S. under the trade name Corgard, is a beta-blocker that is used to treat high blood pressure and angina (chest pain). The drug works by slowing the heart rate and relaxing the blood vessels. Topiramate, sold under the trade name Topamax, is used to treat seizures in patients with epilepsy.
Triptan’ may safely prevent menstrual migraine
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A drug used to treat acute migraine can be safely taken long term to prevent some of the migraines women may experience around the time of their period, research shows.
Results of the study indicate that naratriptan twice daily is well tolerated when taken for 6 continuous days per month for up to 1 year for the prevention of menstruation-related migraine.
Florida man’s headache mystery solved by a bullet
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A Florida man awoke with a severe headache and asked his wife to drive him to a hospital, where doctors found a bullet lodged behind his right ear, sheriff’s deputies said.
“The nurse looked at him and said, ‘It appears that you’ve been shot,’” the Fort Pierce Tribune quoted St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara as saying. “And he said, ‘No way.’”
