Edith Alvarado

November 22, 2016

Psychology 36
Is Migraine More Than A Headache?
Each day so many people suffer from strong headaches. We might see it as something
normal but there is more than just simple headache. All of us have suffered from an occasional
headache. Sometimes, we can even get to the point in which we start to miss school or work
because of those strong headaches. When this happens, we dont think about migraine being the
cause of headaches.
When it comes to migraine, we should know that it is a common and neurologic
condition that can often debilitate us since the headaches can last up to 4 or even more time. In
extreme cases, it can last up to 72 hours (Mannix,et al.2016). It can be considered by some
people as a rare condition since it is not very common that we get to hear about migraine.
Furthermore, migraine is also a chronic and multifactorial neurovascular disease. It can be
characterized by the severe attacks of headache. Something even more critical is the fact that it
can cause dysfunctions in the autonomic nervous system (Spalice ,et al.2016). It is very
important to have some knowledge about the symptoms of migraine, so that when we see
something rare in our behavior we can rapidly go to the doctor with an idea of what migraine is.
In order to detect if we suffer from migraine, we must know that one of the symptoms
can be unilateral, pulsating, moderate or severe intensity, or aggravated by routine physical
activity. In addition, it is also important to know that migraine attacks are also

accompanied by more specific symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light which is
also called photophobia. These symptoms are easier to detect since vomiting is not seen as
something normal for most people. Some of us might start to worry about this and think that we
are passing through a more critical disease (Mannix, et al.2016).
Since migraine is a common and highly disabling primary headache disorder, it is thought
that it can have a genetic background. Also, its known that one of the primary causes and origin
of migraine attacks are enigmatic. However, it is also very important to know that one of the
neurotransmitters involved in migraine patients is glutamate, due to the fact that higher glutamate
levels have been measured in the plasma. When it comes to the importance of neurotransmitters,
it has been demonstrated the role of glutamate in the pathogenesis of migraine. Both human, and
animal studies have demonstrated it (Tajti,et al.2011).
Furthermore, when we think of migraine, we might say that it is a condition that women
and men can suffer equally with no distinction. Something surprising about this is that migraine
is about three times more common in women than men in the United States ( Mannix, et
al.2011).
Its obviously clear that migraine is a condition that all people can get, but unfortunately
it is more common among women, something that makes is very hard because women pass
through a lot of changes in their body than men. When we see to the statistics, there is a big
difference since it is affecting 18% of the women population and only 6% of men are affected by
migraine. Even though, it is more common for people to suffer from migraine headaches around
the ages of 25 and 55. During this time we are in our productivity years, so migraine is going to
have a significant impact on daily life with substantial functional impairment that can include
both physical and emotional ramifications (Mannix, et al.2016).We might think that we have no

reasons to suffer from migraine, but we all have things that make us feel bad, simple things like
having too much homework, difficulties in the workplace, thinking about negative things all
these things can get to a headache that further on can deal to migraine which is a more severe
condition that can make us feel even worse than a simple headache that we all have had. By all
this, is that we should get informed about migraine, it is always good to get informed about
certain diseases that we dont know much about.