Talk:Migraine

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The cause that produces my migraine seems to be omitted everywhere: About 15 hours+ after exposure to diesel fumes I get migraines which often also include vomiting and diarrhoea. The problem is that most research looks into shorter periods, like 3 or 4 hours. Most people do not make the connection that diesel fumes can cause these symptoms, and with such a delay. 121.209.49.22 (talk) 03:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget about when you get hit in the head too, Steve (talk) 13:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs to be divided, you shouldn't have to read through so many paragraphs.Radical man 7 (talk) 22:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Vague stuff.

Neural theory

When certain nerves or an area in the brain stem become irritated, a migraine begins. In response to the irritation, the body releases chemicals which cause inflammation of the blood vessels. These chemicals cause further irritation of the nerves and blood vessels and results in pain. Substance P is one of the substances released with first irritation. Pain then increases because substance P aids in sending pain signals to the brain.

Which nerves?, what area of the brain stem?(a diagram would be helpfull!), what chemical?, from where? ...not a complaint, believe your work is important, Thanks.

Temporal artery involvement, quality of sources

The standard story of migraine has it that an expansion of the temporal artery causes the pain (see e.g. [1]). Our article states twice "The vascular theory of migraines is now seen as secondary to brain dysfunction", citing both times a paperback that is advertised on Amazon with "GET RELIEF FROM MIGRAINES NOW WITH A NEW, BREAKTHROUGH TREATMENT!". That same book is cited six more times in the article. I have three concerns:

• "is now seen" are weasel words and should be avoided
• we should prefer peer-reviewed sources in scientific topics like this
• the meaning of the word "secondary" in the sentence "The vascular theory of migraines is now seen as secondary to brain dysfunction" is unclear in an important way. Are we claiming that
  • expansion of arteries is not involved at all in migraine, or that
  • expansion of arteries is seen in migraines but is not the main cause of the pain, or that
  • expansion of arteries is the main cause of pain in migraines, but the ultimate cause of this expansion is brain dysfunction?

AxelBoldt (talk) 16:39, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Basic artery questions

This article skirts two important basic questions about the cerebral arteries:

• 1. Do most people have sensation in/near arteries in the brain?
• 2. Do most people have voluntary(ish) control over bloodflow in arteries of the brain?

As an aside, I should say that though I don't suffer migraines,* as a child I noticed that MSG in food caused a short-term, distinctive "line" headache on the left side (which corresponds closely to the pericallosal artery), and I since noticed that direct mental attempts to expand the anterior cerebral artery of which this is a branch (for antidepressant effect) can cause a very similar pain, and for good measure I should mention that I suspect much of the "emotion" of shame to be a purely physical sensation of vasoconstriction in the anterior cerebral artery or nearby (and one way to 'find' it). That's my prejudice, but I'm finding it oddly difficult to think of good ways to search for such topics in the literature. Wnt (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

(Exception: fooling around with arteries once gave me a striking 'ocular migraine' on the right side of the visual field that lasted half an hour... proceed with caution ;) )

This entire article is flagrantly wrong.

This article devotes no more than 137 words to the proposition of a migraine without a headache, and the entire rest of the article fails to differentiate between "migraine" and "migraine headache". The headache merely follows the migraine, and it need not. The migraine itself is a simple partial seizure, a word this article does not even mention once. The article only devotes a single sentence to noting that migraine is highly comorbid with epilepsy, which would be because they are essentially the same condition at the neurological level, the main difference being location of the seizure.

I can only conclude that most of the contributors to this article largely have absolutely no idea what they're talking about and are under the mistaken impression that a migraine fundamentally is a form of headache, which is not true. --70.131.119.35 (talk) 03:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)