What Is Migraine Headache?

Migraine is unprovoked headache lasting 4 to 72 hours, severe enough to markedly restrict or even prohibit routine daily activity and accompanied by nausea or light and sound sensitivity. Some migraine attacks may involve headache that is mild in intensity and more characteristic of tension type headache that one typically associates with migraine. Migraine attacks arose because of the changes in the blood vessels that supply the head and brain, aura when it occurred was attributed to the narrowing of arteries with neurologic symptoms resulting from impaired blood flow and the throbbing, sickening pain of migraine due to the widening of the affected and other vessels. Some believe that migraine is probably genetic in origin and that the disorder represents a genetically induced hypersensitivity that affects neurons the brain cells located in the central nervous system. If an affected neuron is triggered by a change in the external environment like dropping in barometric pressure or internal environment like sudden drop in estrogen level, that neuron may active and triggering its neighboring neurons to join in, induce the pathways in the brain that normally transmit head pain to produce the familiar symptoms of a migraine attack.