Werner Becker Archives - Headache and Migraine News

Werner Becker

30 May 2016

Doctors: Use This Tool To Diagnose Chronic Migraine

James Discoveries & Stats, Resources, Tips 1

The journal Cephalgia recently republished a study from last year, showing the benefits of a new tool to diagnose chronic migraine.

There may be great hope for tools such as blood tests to detect various types of migraine in the future, but today it is the interview with the doctor that will give you your diagnosis. Often this is with a family doctor, who can’t be expected to be an expert on everything (although we greatly value her general knowledge and experience).

So it is helpful to have a simple, objective way to correctly diagnose chronic migraine in the majority of cases.

ID-CM Identify Chronic Migraine Enter ID-CM, otherwise known simply as Identify Chronic Migraine.

Many well known doctors from around the world were involved in studying ID-CM, such as Richard Lipton, David Dodick, Dawn Buse, and Werner Becker.

ID-CM, according to the study, is remarkably efficient at diagnosing chronic migraine. It correctly catches the vast majority of actual chronic migraine cases.

In addition, it’s simple to use. A patient can even fill it out on their own, and bring it to their doctor.

The study authors explain the value of ID-CM:

The simplicity and accuracy of ID-CM will enable health care professionals with or without training in neurology, pain, or headache to correctly identify the majority of patients with migraine or CM.

You can find ID-CM online. Again, remember that this is a tool to help patients and doctors – working together. You need to confirm this diagnosis with your doctor, preferably a doctor who knows your medical history, because she can rule out possible other causes of your symptoms. This is very important. ID-CM is not intended to be used by patients to diagnose themselves without any doctor involvement.

To read the study, see Improving the detection of chronic migraine: Development and validation of Identify Chronic Migraine (ID-CM)

To see the tool, and try it out, click here: Identifying Chronic Migraine (ID-CM) Screener.

5 October 2012

Aura, then Headache? What’s Your Sequence?

James Discoveries & Stats 2

When we talk about the different phases of migraine – we throw around words like prodrome, aura, headache, and so on – you might get the idea that the phases come in a sequence, one after another.

Well, there does tend to be a sequence – in other words, usually you don’t have aura and then headache. But the phases are not always clear-cut stages.

Dr. Jakob M. Hansen from Glostrup Hospital in Denmark, has done some work on auras and migraine. He gave a report about aura at the annual meeting of the American Headache Society.

His study suggested that the headache phase – and other symptoms – may start sooner in many patients.

This is what seemed to happen within 15 minutes of the start of migraine aura:

How does that compare with your experience?

Dr. Hansen, as quoted at Clinical Neurology News:

These results do not seem to be consistent with the current ICHD-2 [International Classification of Headache Disorders, second edition] classification that states that migraine headache usually follows the aura symptoms; that’s not the case here.

“Furthermore, we have already headache at the onset of aura, and that does seem to conflict with the idea that you have to have a [cortical] spreading depression to activate the trigeminovascular system to cause headache.

These data suggest that the phases of migraine attack may not be as discrete as originally believed. This is food for thought.

Dr. Hansen is not the only one who has seen this in real life. Dr. Alexander Mauskop has seen a few (though a minority) of patients report aura and headache starting at the same time. Dr. Werner Becker of the University of Calgary also reported seeing nausea, and sensitivity to light and sound, very early in the migraine chain-reaction.

This report is a change from what many migraine specialists have long believed. On the other hand, some like Dr. Mauskop intend to question their patients more closely regarding the sequence of events. Knowing what happens when gives us clues into what goes on in the brain, and helps us get the proper treatment sooner.