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Preeclampsia and eclampsia are complications of pregnancy which manifest by a severe headache and high blood pressure. If left untreated, they can cause strokes and kidney failure. Fortunately, these conditions are very responsive...

Inhalation of pure oxygen under high flow is an effective treatment for an acute cluster headache, although not migraines. Headache is one of the most common symptoms of traumatic brain injury and postconcussion syndrome and...

The field of marijuana research is starting to take off due to the wider acceptance of medicinal marijuana. The other night I attended a lecture in NYC by the “father of cannabis”, Raphael Mechoulam. According to Wikipedia, “Dr. Mechoulam...

Migraine sufferers are more likely to have insomnia than people without migraines. Depression and anxiety, which are more common in migraineurs can often lead to insomnia as well. Surveys indicate that 38% of migraine...

I am certain that you will learn a lot of useful information from listening to the top headache experts in the world. The event is free during the week when it is held (April 23 – 29), but afterwards you will have to pay for full access...

Stroke is slightly more common in migraine sufferers. There are two main types of stroke: hemorrhagic, which results from a burst blood vessel in the brain and ischemic, which is due to a blood clot closing off blood supply to a part...

Photophobia, or sensitivity to light is one of the most common symptoms that accompany a migraine attack. Many patients remains photophobic even after the headache has resolved. In some, a prolonged exposure to bright light...

Postconcussion symptoms can be debilitating and can persist for long periods of time, both in kids and adults. Persistence of headaches, dizziness, difficulty concentrating and with memory is often compounded by depression and anxiety...

Beta-blocker propranolol (Inderal) was first approved over 50 years ago for the treatment of hypertension and 10 years later became the first drug to be approved for the prevention of migraine headaches. Beta-blockers that followed, including...

A new electric device is being tested for the treatment of migraine by an Israeli company, Theranica. Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) has been successfully used for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders for decades...

Cluster headaches are much less common than migraines (less than a million vs 36 million sufferers), but are arguably the most painful type of headaches a man can experience. And it is usually a man because cluster headaches are...

With 13 million participants, soccer is the third most popular sport in the US after basketball and baseball. Worldwide, 250 million people play soccer. Unfortunately, a number of studies have linked playing soccer with...

Naltrexone, along with naloxone are narcotic (opioid) antidotes, that is they counteract the effect of narcotics and are used to treat overdoses with heroin, fentanyl, Percocet, Vicodin, and other opioid drugs. Surprisingly, low doses...

Generic drugs should be cheap, but you still may be overpaying for them. I mentioned this problem in a previous post, but it bears repeating – your copay could be higher than an out-of-pocket price for some generic drugs. For example, 9 tablets...

We’ve adopted electronic medical records (EMR) over 10 years ago when the upfront costs were high and the training curve was steep. One of the reasons for our early adoption was that we were running out of space for paper...

Estrogen-based oral contraceptives are usually contraindicated for women who have migraines with aura. In the latest issue of the journal Headache, Dr. Anne Calhoun of the Carolina Headache Institute argues that this contraindication...

Physical and mental symptoms can persist after a concussion and strangely, mild concussions are more likely to cause persistent symptoms than severe ones. In a previous post, Rest your brain after a head injury I described a study that...

Italian researchers published a study in the journal Headache that attempted to correlate the attachment style in children with migraines with headache severity and psychological symptoms. Attachment style typically develops...

Botox is by far the safest and the most effective preventive treatment for chronic and frequent episodic migraine headaches. The only downside is the cost. A 200-unit vial of Botox costs about $1,200. Most insurance companies cover...

Atul Gawande is a surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School. He is also a very talented writer who has written four books and has been writing for the New Yorker since 1998...

Vestibular migraine has been also called migraine-associated vertigo or dizziness and migrainous vertigo. Diagnostic criteria, according to the international headache classification, include a current or past history of migraine...

Severe headache is a common symptom of acute glaucoma. It comes from a sudden increase in the intra-ocular pressure caused by the closure of channels that drain fluid from the eyeball. This headache can be similar to a...

Many chiropractors advertise their success in treating migraine headaches. Norwegian researchers conducted a scientific study of chiropractic manipulation for migraine headaches in 104 patients. They divided patients into three groups...

Vitamin C deficiency appears to be more common in people with back pain, according to a study just published in the journal Pain by Canadian researchers. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is important for collagen formation and collagen is...

Many women are more likely to have migraines around the time of their menstrual period and in some, those migraines can be more severe. Previous studies have determined that women living together often synchronized their...

Restless leg syndrome (RLS) has been reported to be more common in patients with migraines. I wrote about this association in a previous post about 4 years ago. Another study, just published in The Journal of Headache and Pain...

Functional MRI (fMRI) imaging has been a powerful tool for visualizing processing of information in the brain. This technique is based on the observation that the MRI signal changes with changes in the amount of blood flowing...

Two leading headache experts, Drs. Richard Lipton and Dawn Buse of the Montefiore Headache clinic gave positive comments on the report published in Pain and described in my recent post. Another headache specialist from Texas...

Beta blockers, such as propranolol (Inderal) and timolol (Blocadren) are the oldest drugs for the prevention of migraine headaches. They’ve been used for this indication for the past 50 years. Calcium channel blockers are not as effective...

According to large epidemiological studies, migraine sufferers are 2-3 times more likely to develop depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders than those without migraines. And it is a bidirectional relationship, meaning that those...