Headache
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Up to 5% of the general population suffers from transformed migraine. This study analyzes clinical responses of transformed migraine to cervical peripheral nerve stimulation. ⋯ These results raise the possibility that C1 through C3 peripheral nerve stimulation can help improve transformed migraine symptoms and disability. A controlled study is required to confirm these results.
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To determine the extent to which variation in the Migraine Disability Assessment (MIDAS) score is associated with headache frequency, pain intensity, headache symptoms, gender, and employment status. ⋯ Challenges to the utility of the MIDAS as a measure include whether headache-related disability is largely a function of other routine headache features and whether MIDAS is inherently biased based on work status and gender. While the MIDAS score was associated with headache frequency and average pain score, these two headache features explain only a modest proportion of the variation in MIDAS scores. Additionally, gender and work status were not related to MIDAS scores. These findings suggest that the MIDAS score captures information about disability that is not inherent to other headache features and is independent of gender and work status.
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The intimate relationship between sleep and headache has been recognized for centuries, yet the relationship remains clinically and nosologically complex. Headaches associated with nocturnal sleep have often been perceived as either the cause or result of disrupted sleep. An understanding of the anatomy and physiology of both conditions allows for a clearer understanding of this complex relationship and a more rational clinical and therapeutic approach. ⋯ Identifying and classifying the specific headache disorder in patients with both headache and sleep disturbances can facilitate an appropriate diagnostic evaluation. Patients with poorly defined nocturnal or awakening headaches should undergo polysomnography to exclude a treatable sleep disturbance, especially in the absence of an underlying psychological disorder or analgesic overuse syndrome. In patients with a well defined primary headache disorder, unless there are compelling historical or examination findings suggestive of a primary sleep disturbance, a formal sleep evaluation is seldom necessary.
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To compare pain severity, disability, psychological distress, and quality of life between patients with headache and nonheadache treatment-seeking chronic pain patients. ⋯ Even when considering patients with focal rather than diffuse chronic pain complaints, patients with headache are dissimilar from other patients with chronic pain. Pain severity, frequency, disability, psychological distress, and quality of life are significantly more prominent or impaired in patients with chronic pain without headache compared to patients with headache.
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We assessed the views of physicians interested in headache as to the diagnosis of the most commonly occurring and currently controversial headaches. ⋯ There remains a number of physicians interested in headache who do not use the IHS classification system, who modify the IHS criteria in practice, and who use the "transformed migraine" diagnosis for patients with chronic daily headache.