Website news

23 May 2016

Giving Yourself Injections (Poll Results)

Have you ever had to give yourself an injection? I have. Not fun.

That was the question in our most recent poll, and here are the results:

Self-Injections Poll Results Over 55% of you said “yes”. And I’m sure many of those would be talking about multiple injections.

Taking medications via a needle is a common method to stop a migraine attack after it starts. Medications such as sumatriptan and dihydroergotamine may be injected to get the medication into your system faster.

The downside is that a migraine patient may be more sensitive to pain, and may be suffering from nausea, and using a needle may be a very big deal.

But medical technology is starting to give us other options. Some delivery systems may be almost as good – or as good – or even better than injections.

Take for example nasal sprays and nasal powders, needle free injection systems, and skin patches.

If you find injections helpful, but very difficult to do (due to the pain, or other reasons), talk with your doctor about some of the many options out there.

While you’re here, check out the right side bar of the website for the latest poll!

8 February 2016

Your #1 Advice For Someone Newly Diagnosed…

James Tips, Website news 0

It might be surprising what the #1 piece of advice was – from website visitors to those who have been newly diagnosed with migraine, cluster, or another headache disorder. There are so many things that could be said.

Remember, this is from people who have been down the road, some have had a headache disorder for many, many years. They’ve made mistakes, and they’ve had success.

Headache Advice -Wondering? So what was the most common bit of advice? Keep a detailed migraine/headache diary.

They mentioned tracking things like what you eat, what the weather is like, your monthly cycle, your ups and downs. The more detail the better.

Why? One reason is that many people have drastically cut down on their symptoms by identifying triggers. That is, they find that certain foods, or weather conditions, or hairsprays, or whatever it may be, tend to bring on symptoms or make them worse.

Sometimes we’re surprised when we actually keep track and find out what those triggers actually are.

But of course a headache diary is about more than just triggers – it’s also about finding an objective way to evaluate treatments, and find overall balance.

That’s just one of the bits of advice that people gave for our latest community article. Check out the top 10 right here.

Also, don’t miss:

2 November 2015

The Colour of Migraine?

James Website news 0

So what colour is migraine?

That was the question of the latest poll – what colour do you associate with migraine?

So this is the answer:

The Color of Migraine?
The colour most associated with migraine was black – then red, and then white. The rest of the colours were fairly far behind, but included yellow, orange, purple, blue, and green (in that order).

A brief investigation of the psychology of colour turns up the following attributes of the top 3:

Black: heaviness, oppression, death, anger, depression
Red: aggression, heartbeat, anxiety, danger
White: hospitals, death

Of course, these are just the more negative connotations. And some experts are telling us that the connections between colour and emotion are just personal.

Still, I’d much rather look at the picture below than the picture above. 🙂

Healing colors?

11 June 2015

Language Disturbances During a Migraine Attack: Poll

James Website news 12

Do you have trouble speaking during a migraine attack? Well, most of the respondants to our recent poll do – at least some of the time.

The question was: Do you have trouble with speech during a migraine attack (trouble remembering words, slurring, etc)?

And here are the results:

Language disturbances during migraine (poll) In the end, 42% said “Always”. In fact, over 90% had experienced some language difficulty during attack.

Although those who had problems are the most likely to take part in the poll, this still shows that there are huge numbers of people who have issues like:

Trouble thinking of a word
Trouble saying certain sounds
Stuttering
Slurring

Problems like this are actually quite common in migraine. They also tend to be worse with certain medications, such as Topamax (topiramate).

If you’ve experienced language trouble in migraine, leave a comment and tell us what it was like. You’re probably not alone!

12 February 2015

Migraine Symptom: Neck Pain (poll results)

James Information, Website news 0

There is an increasing awareness that neck pain is a major symptom of migraine. In fact, neck pain seems to be more common in migraine than nausea.

Our recent poll affirms this once again. You were asked, Do you feel that neck pain is a symptom of your migraine attacks?

Neck Pain and Migraine

85% said yes, with only 11% saying no.

This fits well with a study on neck pain and migraine that we talked about last year – 69% of those with episodic migraine had some disability from neck pain, and 92% of those with chronic migraine had some disability from neck pain.

Neck pain is more than just a pain in the neck – it’s actually disabling, on top of the disabling pain of migraine, and other common symptoms such as visual disturbances and nausea.

Although it was once believed that “tension headaches” (tension-type headaches) were caused by muscle tension, we now know that the causes are much more complex. However, there is a much rarer type of headache called a cervicogenic headache, which actually does come from pain in the neck or else a disorder in the neck, spine, and surrounding tissue. To give a diagnosis of cervicogenic headache, your doctor must find evidence of a disorder or lesion within the cervical spine or soft tissues of the neck, and this must directly cause your headache.

But for most of us, neck pain is another part of the migraine puzzle, a disabling piece that should not be ignored by patient or doctor.