Category: Migraine Canada™ Archived

No, there are a few differences. In children: Pain is most often located in the forehead or on both sides of the head. In adults, pain is usually located in only one side of the head. The duration of the attack is shorter. The attacks…

Before starting a preventative treatment, it is important that you understand what the steps are. In order to assess the effectiveness of a preventative treatment, knowing the initial situation is required. What is the frequency of your attacks? Using a migraine diary is very useful….

Antidepressants often have a bad reputation with patients. However, they are efficient when it comes to reducing the frequency of migraines. Read this article to know more about antidepressants. Clinical scenario : You consult with a migraine specialist. He or she prescribes Elavil, saying this medicine…

The key is to stop the medication overuse.  This is not always easy, as the headaches often become temporarily worse when the overused medication is stopped. There are five important components which are necessary for most people with migraine and medication overuse headache if they…

When you feel a migraine coming on, you only have one thing in mind: “it has to stop, otherwise I will lose the whole day.” But what medicine to take, and when? “Do I need a prescription?” This section presents treatments you can use to…

You have to stop the attack at its onset. Treating an attack that is already well established is harder. Identifying the onset of an attack is a primordial step. To successfully control your migraines, you have to: know your attacks and be able to identify…

No treatment is 100% effective. It happens that attacks are very strong and do not respond to usual treatments. What can you do? Adjusting the acute treatment is not always an easy task. The cause of the failure has to be identified. This table presents…

If you are overweight, you are 3 times more likely to develop chronic headaches than people with a healthy weight. Several studies have established an association between weight and headaches (not only migraines): overweight or obese people are more likely to suffer from frequent headaches….

If you have frequent headaches and are using symptomatic medications frequently, could your medication use be part of the problem? Shown below are the limits suggested by the International Headache Society which, if exceeded, places people, particularly those with migraine, at risk for increasing headache…

There now are 7 different triptans available in Canada, and some have more that one formulation : injections, tablets to swallow, tablets that dissolve in the mouth, and nasal sprays. They are listed in alphabetical order in the table below. If you are taking one,…

I have fast rising attacks with early nausea or vomiting. I do not keep the tablets. Are there other options for me? Many people with migraine have nausea or in some cases even vomiting with their attacks. For this reason, medications that are ingested may…

By strong painkillers, most people mean the ones that contain opiates. The most common opiate included in the combination drug analgesics is codeine. Although such medications are in some ways good painkillers, there are reasons to try to avoid them in migraine. For one thing,…

The medications to be discussed here are the symptomatic migraine medications which are used to treat individual migraine attacks. They can be divided into four broad categories 1) The simple analgesics Included here are medications like acetylsalicylic acid ASA for example, Aspirin and acetaminophen ,for…

So we have all likely been told at one time or another to stand up straight. Proper posture is an important part of overall health and wellness. For those who experience a headache disorder, including migraine and/or tension-type headache, postural awareness and correction is an…

Lack of sleep is a common trigger. Is there a way you can improve sleep? Read more for advice on how a regular sleeping schedule can improve your headaches. 5 tips to improve sleep: A regular sleep schedule of 7-8 hours a night. Do not…

For some individuals with migraine, the headaches become more frequent with time. Although most people with migraine can look forward to eventual improvement, or at least stability of their migraine, migraine does worsen over time in some people. This has been called migraine progression. A…

The main reason would be if some other diagnosis is suspected. The patient’s symptoms or findings on the physical examination may suggest that there is a significant chance of finding another cause , other than migraine for the patient’s headache. Are there other reasons to…

A tension type headache is very different from a migraine. It is actually its opposite! How can you differentiate it from a migraine attack? You have a headache that you can recognise at the onset, which occurs once in a while: – Light to moderate,…