Migraine is a debilitating disorder and may profoundly affect the daily lives of people who suffer from it. It’s a chronic neurological disorder characterised by recurrent acute and severe headaches, occurring when there is an exposure to a trigger that facilitates the flare up of a crisis. Migraine is a name that derives from Greek name hemikrania and means “pain on one side of the head”.
A crisis of migraine consists typically of a pain on one side of the head, often a throbbing pain which can last 2 to 7 hours. It is characterised by headaches that can be mild or intense and comes associated with a multiple types of symptoms related to the autonomic nervous system. These associated symptoms are nausea, vomiting, increased sensitivity to light (photophobia), and an increased sensitivity to sound (phonophobia). Pains may be aggravated by physical activity. So people who suffer from migraine tend to withdraw and collect in a dark room without wishing to have direct contact with people who usually are around them.
Most people develop symptoms of aura, which can consist of a disturbance of vision, modification of the language, sensory or motor disturbances. The aura symptoms are a warning that a crisis of migrane is to occur. Sometimes the aura symptoms are simply not followed by the headache.
There is an estimate that 10% of the world’s population suffers from migraine at some point in their life.