Too much stress leads to an over-reaction in the brain

Migraine is not an invention of modern times: the ancient Greeks and Romans knew a headache, is the Latin word "migraine" (half a head), the concept of migraine. In the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen was that the migraine attack, so that half of the head because he could not bear the pain on both sides. Thank you to new imaging techniques including magnetic resonance imaging, we now know, leads to an intolerable overreaction of the nerves in the brain stem, the pain. For example, if we have too much stress, these pathways are übererregt. It increases Schutte Entzündungsbotenstoffe stimulants and hormones that cause the blood vessels in the meninges. The throbbing pain is typical.

Migraine is a headache - the whole body suffers
Sometimes a migraine is announced in advance: the restless activity, or fatigue, irritability, frequent yawning, sudden and / or the whims of Sussex. Four hours to three days of attack can be. If the pain is severe, the only remains of many people in the dark room to leave. "Every movement has been strengthened," said Master headache Professor Hartmut Goebel, director of the Pain Clinic in Kiel. Therefore, during an attack of patients excluded from normal life, really. Often nausea and vomiting, chills and occasionally diarrhea. In addition, the senses are sharper in attack, disturbing impression that something unpleasant. With 10 percent of migraine patients, one hour before the attack are zigzag lines or scratches on the front of the eye - the vision of this rule on one side, but also balance and voice disorders in migraine with aura.

No personality, but also makes the brain that migraine
The individual is responsible for his illness to make - he thought he had never seen before. Today we know that the biological threshold of pain. "Migraine is not the personality," says Professor Göbel. The patients are not ambitious and perfectionist than the rest of the population - to feel, but perhaps faster and deeper in thought. Because the brain reacts differently, as experience has shown a red light just before it turns green, the cheer of the nerves. Peace of mind when the pressure on the accelerator and drove off. In patients with migraine, but tension remained. Means that the brain does not stop, not just a new attack, but still. This suggests a genetic predisposition is mainly in families suffering from migraines.