Table of contents:
- Different migraines and headaches
- Characteristics of a migraine attack
- What causes a person to have a migraine attack?
- What happens in our head during a migraine attack?
You may be familiar with headaches that appear on only one side. No wonder you then call it a migraine, because in Indonesia, migraines are synonymous with one-sided headaches. In fact, what you are probably feeling is a cluster headache, which is indeed focused on one part of the head.
Then, what is migraine?
Different migraines and headaches
Headache next door, aka cluster headache, is a type of headache characterized by pain that suddenly appears behind the eye or the area around the eye, but only on one side of the head. The pain can last for at least 15 minutes to three hours.
Meanwhile, migraines are attacks of recurring headaches followed by pain that is usually severe and often makes you helpless. The pain is intense throbbing or is in the form of extreme pain such as being hit by a hard object. Migraines often occur on one side of the head. However, this condition is classified as an inherited neurological disorder due to a lower resistance to the stimuli that cause migraines, different from ordinary headaches or cluster headaches.
Characteristics of a migraine attack
Some people experience nausea, vomiting, or sensitivity to sounds or lights during a migraine attack. A severe migraine attack can last from four hours to three days.
Migraines can occur with or without aura. Auras are perceptual disorders experienced by sufferers, for example, smell strange smells, see bright lights, lines or "stars", or sounds that don't actually exist. Sufferers may have difficulty speaking or other basic skills (such as writing or reading). Temporary vision loss on one side of the eye is also common.
Aura can appear 10 minutes to a day before a migraine attack occurs. In some cases, the sufferer may experience only an aura without a migraine attack. Migraine with aura tends to be lighter and less overwhelming, compared to sudden migraine attacks without aura.
Migraines are considered severe if the nausea, headaches, and other symptoms are so severe that they prevent the sufferer from doing normal activities. Migraines are also said to be severe if the sufferer has a history of attacks at least 2-5 times with the same pattern.
What causes a person to have a migraine attack?
For years, doctors and scientists have believed that migraines are linked to the swelling and narrowing of blood vessels on the surface of the brain.
Now researchers have been able to determine that swollen blood vessels are one of the many causal chains of migraine attacks, but this is not the main cause. What they know for sure, migraine is a hereditary neurological disorder.
Reporting from How Stuff Works, if one of your parents has a history of migraine attacks, you have a 50 percent chance of having the condition. If both of your parents have this history, your chances increase to 70 percent.
Researchers believe that migraines are caused by abnormal biochemical activity of the body's largest cranial nerve and the generator of pain signals, the trigeminal nerve. These molecular changes in the trigeminal nerve rapidly spread to the surrounding fine nerve tissue.
What happens in our head during a migraine attack?
Reporting from Health, the pain mechanism generally starts from stimulation received by the trigeminal nerve, causing the release of a number of neurotransmitters, including serotonin, which is associated with mood changes and dopamine. The release of this neurotransmitter then causes pain, followed by blood pressure which naturally fluctuates with the heart rate. In addition, stimulation of the trigeminal nerve also causes the surrounding blood vessel network to swell and disrupt blood flow back to the brain.
In migraine sufferers, this mechanism becomes very sensitive to pressure. This nerve continuously sends pain signals even though there is no real pain stimulation, for example, hitting the head on a wall. However, sufferers have a lower threshold for brain biochemical abnormalities. In other words, these nerves become super sensitive as a result of exposure to a trigger or a combination of triggers at one time.
If a migraine is not treated promptly, pain around the eye area and temples will radiate to the central nervous system. At this point, this pain would be very difficult to turn off. It's like a car alarm that keeps running: instead of being the protection system it should be, this abnormally functioning system actually interferes with your ability to function normally in everyday life.
