pre-eclampsia

6 June 2012

Preeclampsia and Migraines

Is there a connection between preeclampsia and migraines? Or are there special symptoms related to preeclampsia?

Preeclampsia is, of course, a high blood pressure condition that occurs during pregnancy. It can even be a slight increase in blood pressure. Preeclampsia is diagnosed when there is excess protein in your urine. There are other markers in a urine test that can warn you of preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia can put both you and your baby at serious risk. At times there are few or no symptoms, which is another reason why it’s important to have regular checkups during pregnancy.

But what about preeclampsia and migraines? Can this condition actually cause migraine attacks?

There are some clear links between pre-eclampsia and migraine. For example, women taking triptan medications during pregnancy are more likely to develop preeclampsia. At least one study has suggested that women with migraine are more likely to develop preeclampsia in pregnancy.

Changes in the body can certainly trigger migraine attacks in a migraineur. However, the headaches that are caused by preeclampsia are not called migraine headaches, although some of the symptoms may be similar.

There is a specific term for headache and related symptoms in preeclampsia – it has the rather unimaginative name of headache attributed to pre-eclampsia.

And yes, the symptoms can be similar to a migraine attack.

This headache has at least one of these characteristics: It’s on both sides of the head, pulsating, and/or aggravated by physical activity.

A preeclampsia headache will actually develop when your blood pressure is high. Once hypertension has been treated, the headache will be gone within a week.

Some of the other typical preeclampsia symptoms are also found in many migraine attacks. For example:

problems with vision, including loss of vision, blurred vision, and auras
photophobia (sensitivity to light)
nausea
dizziness
anxiety/confusion
abdominal pain

These symptoms can make a preeclampsia look very much like a migraine attack.

Since women with preeclampsia can actually be symptom-free, it can be challenging to diagnose preeclampsia early, especially if you’re not seeing your doctor at regular intervals during pregnancy. However, as always, if you notice any changes in your headache/migraine symptoms, you do need to see a doctor right away. If you’re pregnant, have tests done for preeclampsia. There are actually other factors that can cause a headache with Headache attributed to pre-eclampsia symptoms.

Once these other possibilities have been ruled out, you may have a diagnosis of migraine, or a type of headache. For more on dealing with headache during pregnancy, check here.

If you have migraine and pre-eclampsia, make sure your doctor knows about both conditions. There are some drugs that are used to treat both conditions.

Visit the Mayo Clinic for more on Preeclampsia.

1 June 2010

Women with Migraine and Preeclampsia

James Information, News 0

A recent study continues to raise the question – are women with a history of migraine at increased risk of preeclampsia?

Preeclampsia is a condition involving high blood pressure (hypertension). It happens during and after pregnancy. A brief description from the Mayo Clinic:

Preeclampsia is a condition of pregnancy marked by high blood pressure and excess protein in your urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Preeclampsia often causes only modest increases in blood pressure. Left untreated, however, preeclampsia can lead to serious â€” even fatal â€” complications for both you and your baby.

The study was small – just 90 women. The researchers concluded that there is a significant increase in risk for migraineurs. However, the study was prompted from reports of many women with a history of migraine having preeclampsia, and it is only a step to more conclusive research.

Interestingly, preeclampsia itself is characterized by severe headaches, dizziness, nausea, photophobia – all symptoms familiar to migraine sufferers. It likely that there is a common mechanism in the body triggering both the migraine attacks and the preeclampsia. (There are a number of causes of preeclampsia, but one or more may be related to migraine)

If you’re diagnosed with preeclampsia, your doctor may recommend medication, bed rest, and if you’re far enough along, induced delivery.

It’s very important, particularly for migraineurs, to report to your doctor any changes in migraine and headache symptoms (particularly after 20 or 30 weeks, when early cases of preeclampsia start to show up). It’s also important to get regular checkups. If you’re diagnosed with preeclampsia, your doctor will want to monitor you more closely.

17 February 2010

How Dangerous are Migraine Drugs during Pregnancy?

James Medications 0

In the past, doctors have encouraged women to avoid certain drugs, including triptans, Divalproex sodium, aspirin and ibuprofen, during pregnancy. One of the reasons is because of the possibility of birth defects with certain medications.

Sometimes these concerns are well grounded in research. But quite often they’re more a result of a lack of research. We’re just not sure what such-and-such a drug will do to the baby.

A new study of 70,000 women set out to find a link between triptans in particular and birth defects. 1535 of the women had used sumatriptan (Imitrex), rizatriptan (Maxalt), zolmitriptan (Zomig), or eletriptan (Relpax) during pregnancy. The answer – there doesn’t seem to be a link. Babies born to women taking triptans during pregnancy had no more risk of birth defects than did the general population.

So it seems that for now triptans are a clear choice for pregnant women, though the researchers caution that other independent studies are needed. However, the researchers did find a few things that were disturbing.

Caution still needed…

The researchers reported a "slight increase" in the risk of excessive bleeding after delivery. More specifically, the women taking triptans were more likely to develop atonic uterus, a condition where the uterus doesn’t contract properly after delivery – leading to excessive bleeding.

It was also found that the women taking triptans were more likely to lose significant blood during labour and delivery, and more likely to develop pre-eclampsia or eclampsia. There was also a chance of increased vomiting during pregnancy, and an increased chance of being folate deficient (low in folic acid).

Now after seeing the big long list you may be concerned. But we’re not talking about a high risk here – though it is a risk that is significant enough to be mentioned.

And remember, migraine itself has its own risks. Migraine may increase a pregnant woman’s risk of stroke and heart disease, for example.

So every choice has its risks. During pregnancy, it’s important to take the time to evaluate your migraine symptoms, and find treatment. Make sure your doctor takes the time to deal with this important aspect of your life – it’s easy to try to ignore it with so many other things going on!

Heads up from: Somebody Heal Me