There is some new research that might indicate that having allergies or hay fever might increase the severity and the frequency of migraine headaches. This comes from a study in which scientists looked at data from almost 6,000 migraine headache sufferers. They filled out a survey in 2008 during the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study. Around two-thirds of them said that they got seasonal allergies or hay fever. This is an interesting study and seems to point towards that fact, that there is something about what happens to the body during an allergy attack that makes migraines possible, or at least worse, or something nasal perhaps. No one is yet sure of what is going on.
The study came to the conclusion that sufferers of allergies or hay fever were around thirty-three percent more likely to have migraines more often than those who didn’t have hay fever or allergies. The report was in Cephalagia and was published November 25th. That doesn’t mean that you have to have allergies or hay fever to get migraines. More than 60 percent of respondents didn’t suffer from migraines at all. This is groundbreaking work, the first ever to discover a link between the frequency and severity of migraines and the condition that causes allergies and hay fever, the inflammation of the nasal mucus membrane, which is caused by all kind of non allergic and allergic triggers.
The lead author on the study was Dr. Vincent Martin, who is with the University of Cincinnati. He is a Professor of Medicine as well as being co-directory of the Headache and Facial Pain Program at the University. “We are not sure whether the [hay fever] causes the increased frequency of headaches or whether the migraine attacks themselves produce symptoms in these patients,” Martin said. What is clear is that the results of this study could prove crucial in treating migraines, which has always ignored the nasal passengers as a cause.
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