A migraine headache can come with and without auras although neither is less painful than the other. The biggest difference is that migraines without an aura may be less stressful and frightening. While migraines are often associated with auras, the reality is that only about twenty percent of sufferers actually experience any symptoms. The aura stage is part of the complex migraine, following the prodome stage. The aura stage usually lasts less than half an hour and its symptoms and effects can vary tremendously from one migraine sufferer to the next. Depending upon how extreme these symptoms get, the aura stage can become something quite horrifying, like a bad dream or, worse, a movie sequence of a bad dream.
Last year, the International Headache Society published a study that found "overuse" of over the counter medicines as a major contributing factor to frequent migraine headache attacks. "Overuse has less to do with how many pills you take to relieve a single headache than with how often you take them," explains Dr. Robert Kunkel, a headache specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Headache Center. "If you get more than two headaches a week and take pain pills for them, you're at risk." Studies showed that pain relievers with caffeine, like Excedrin, were some of the worst culprits for exacerbating proclivity to migraines.
For many years, folks suffering from migraines had to deal with the pain, nausea and interruption to their daily lives because no effective treatment was available. Over the counter medications just did not do anything for them. In the United States alone, more than 28 million suffer from migraines — which translates to a high amount of time lost for work, social activities and daily routines. After some time spent on research and testing, a class of drugs known as triptans were approved that offered effective migraine headache relief.
Every adult has experienced a headache at some point. However, headaches vary greatly in frequency and severity. Most people can self-diagnose their own headaches and often turn to over-the-counter medications to help relieve the pain. However, doctors do not have any set of tests to diagnose headache types and causes. Instead, they mostly rely on the description that patients give them, and typically, the descriptions of the symptoms of headache pains vary wildly.
There are plenty of different types of headache symptoms that people have to contend with. Since there are so many different types, the symptoms vary from one extreme to the other.
Tension headaches are the most common type of headaches experienced by many. Tension headaches result from the tightening of muscles in the back, neck, shoulders and face.
Migraines, on the other hand, affect about 6% of men and 13% of women. Compared to tension headaches, migraines can be much more intense and last longer.
If given the option, most people would prefer not to have to deal with a headache. Sufferers would be only too happy to know how to prevent migraine headaches from coming on and would be very willing to do all they could not to have any headache pains at all. At the very least, they would work to minimize the pain associated with the headaches. Chronic headache pain sufferers know that the intense pain can often have effects that remain long after the actual migraine attack is over.
