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Old 05-04-2011, 03:08 AM
Barry Spencer Barry Spencer is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4
15 yr Member
Barry Spencer Barry Spencer is offline
New Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 4
15 yr Member
Default my opinion about various trigger factors

I've investigated all the factors accused of being migraine triggers.

Your Boss/stress at work and elsewhere: No, I don't believe your boss can give you a headache. "Stress," insofar as it exists, seems to consist mainly of caffeine-caused anxiety. Work-related "stress" amounts to anxiety due to work-related caffeine consumption.

Strong Scents: I think this is mistaking a symptom for a cause. Migraine often causes odors to be amplified ("olfactory aura"). So migraine patients often notice strong odors associated with their headaches, and wrongly conclude the odors must have caused the headache. Instead, migraine caused both the headache and the excessive sensitivity to odors.

Hair Accessories: I think this is another case of mistaking a migraine symptom for a cause.

Increase in Temperature/warm weather: could promote headache by provoking changes in habits of caffeine intake.

Poor Posture: No.

Various Foods: Red Wine, Cheese, Cold Cuts: red wine definitely seems to promote migraine. But neither cheese nor cold cuts nor any other food has been demonstrated to trigger a migraine. And avoiding suspected "trigger" foods is not an effective approach to treating migraine.

Caffeine; used in moderation it "might" be acceptable and sometimes caffeine is used to stop a bad headache or a migraine in conjunction with medication to help stop pain: Caffeine causes headache by a mechanism of addiction and withdrawal, and relieves primary headache/migraine headache by reversing caffeine withdrawal.

Skipping meals: might be another case of mistaking a migraine symptom for a cause. Migraine can suppress appetite and thereby cause the patient to skip a meal. The patient may mistakenly conclude that skipping the meal caused the migraine, but it was the other way around.

Smoking: promotes migraine.

Intense Exercise (although mild/moderate exercise can be helpful): Migraine patients have an abnormal neurochemistry. Unlike in normal people, exertion causes circulating norepinephrine to decrease in migraine patients. It may be that decrease in norepinephrine that induces headache in migraine patients. Exertion may cause hypoxia (shortage of oxygen), and hypoxia promotes migraine.
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