22/10/2021
Migraine or Hemicrania or Nervous Headache
Migraine:It is a peculiar type of one sided headache which by some has been consideredit as neuralgia of the temporal, frontal and occipital nerves, or as a hyperesthesia of the brain, or a cerebral neuralgia. Some others consider it in the female as a hysterical manifestation of certain derangement of the menstrual function. Migraine in women occurs right before, during or after menstrual periods. This is called as menstrual migraine. A decrease in hormones may trigger a migraine, because estrogen controls the chemicals in the brain that controls sensation of pain in women. Migraine is most frequently met with in women of hysteric, chlorotic or anemic tendency, and a weak and nervous constitution, also in married women who have no children,(nallyparas) and in young widows. Men of weak constitution who read and study much in the night, who lead a loose life, are likewise subject to migraine. Nevertheless, migraine is a severe and painful headache.
Migraine, which is so frequently met with, returns periodically. It generally commences in the morning and increases during the course of the day as the Sun ascends and headache reaches its peak in the evening. Very often it attacks only one side of the head, or passes from one side to the other, or it is confined to the top of the head, or to the forehead or occiput. Headache often reaches an unbearable stage, associated with nausea and generally ends with vomiting of bitter, greenish, or slimy masses. In some cases one thorough vomiting is enough to relieve the pain while in other cases both vomiting and pain continue for several hours, until finally a sound sleep relieves it all. During the paroxysms the patient is very sensitive to light, noise, strong odors and touch and seeks a dark, noiseless place where he can lie undisturbed.
The following are some of the symptoms of Migraine.
1.Moderate to severe pain usually confined to one side of the head but, in certain cases it can occur on both sides of the head.
2.Pain will be throbbing and pulsating.
3. Aggravation of pain due to mental exertion.
4.Aversion to light and sound
5.Nausea and vomiting
6.Great relief after vomiting and subsequent sound sleep.
Treatment: (Leading symptoms).
Gelsemium: commences with dimness of sight and double vision, vertigo spreading from occiput. Heavinessof head.Band-feeling around and occipital headaches.Worse about 10 A.M and when lying down.Better from compression, from lying and reclining the head on high pillow.Desire to be quiet, to be left alone.Dull, heavy headache with heaviness of eyelids and muscular soreness of neck and shoulders. Headache preceded by blindness and betterfrom profuse urination.Visionblurred, smoky.Dim sighted; pupils dilated and insensible to light. Orbital neuralgia, with contraction and twitching of muscles.Bruised pain in back of the orbits. One pupil dilated and the other contracted.
2. Argentumnitricum:Pressive pain in the forehead on getting awake in the morning, gradually extending from the supra-orbital ridge upward to the coronal suture with heaviness in head and vertigo, which does not turn in a circle, but inclines the patient to reel to one or the other side; dimness before the eyes; ringing in the ears; sense of relaxation in the stomach, as though it were hanging down loosely; all the symptoms better after eating a good dinner and drinking a glass of wine. Worse after drinking coffee. Emotional disturbances cause appearance of hemi-cranial attacks. Aching in frontal eminence, with enlarged feeling in corresponding eye. Boring pain; better on tight bandaging and pressure. Itching of scalp.Hemi-crania; bones of head feel as if separated.Spots before the vision.Blurred vision.Photophobia in warm room.Purulentophthalmia.Great swelling of conjunctiva; discharge abundant and purulent.Aching and tired feeling in eyes. Better closing or pressing upon them.
3. Sanguinaria: The pain commences in the occiput ( back part of the head), rises and spreads over the head and settles especially above the right eye, with nausea, vomiting and chilliness. The patient is constrained to seek a dark room and to lie perfectly still; flushes of heat; burning of the soles and feet; scanty urine at first, later profuse flow or clear urine. Periodical sick headache; pain better lying down and sleep.Worse right sided headache.
4.Spigelia: Different sorts of pains frequently extending into the eyes and sides of the face, always worse from stooping, slightest motion, concussion, noise, and during stool; they are apt to appear at regular hours, either in the forenoon or in the night and are mostly attended with paleness of the face, palpitation of the heart and oppression of chest.Pain beneath frontal eminence and temples, extending to eyes.Semi-lateral, involving left eye; pain violent, throbbing; worse, making a false step. Pain as if a band around head.Vertigo.Spigelia mostly suitable and useful in left sided pain in eye and head.
5. Belladona: One sided pain especially on the right side; throbbing, beating, attended with vertigo, congestion of the head and eyes, and throbbing of the carotid arteries(thick tubes carrying blood from the heart to the brain that pass up through neck) or great paleness of the face; pain worse on lying down, better on bending head backward, and external pressure.Vertigo, with falling to left side or backwards.Sensitive to least contact.Much throbbing and heat. Palpitation reverberating in head with labored breathing. Pain in forehead, also occiput, and temples. Headache worse on right side and aggravated by light, noise, lying down and inthe afternoon; better by pressure and semi-erect position.
6.Bryonia: Headache on first walking in the morning, gradually increasing till evening. Pain as if the forehead would burst. Worse from motion, coughing and sneezing and better by rest. Tongue thickly coated; violent thirst or dry feeling in the mouth. Gastric derangement, constipation or diarrhea in the morning; patient is very irritable and gets angry easily.Vertigo, nausea, faintness on rising, confusion. Bursting, splitting headache, as if everything would be pressed out; as if hit by a hammer from within; headache becomes seated in occiput. Frontal headache, frontal sinuses involved.
7.Arsenicum Album: Hemicrania in persons with affections of the liver; alternating bilious colic and migraine; great sensitiveness of the head to the open air. During the spells the patient is very restless, constantly moves the head and limbs back and forth and feels some relief from doing so. Better from external warmth; from wrapping the head up in worm clothes. Burning in eyes with acrid lachrymation.Disturbed, anxious and restless sleep. Must have head raised by pillows. Sleeps with hands over head.
8.Sulphur: Pain in the forehead and top of the head; heat in the head and coldness in the feet. Sleeplessness.Itching of the skin.Suppressed eruptions.Looseness of the bowels early in the morning, driving out of bed.Sick headache recurring periodically.Heat and burning in eyes. Sulphur subjects are nearly always irritable, depressed, thin and weak even with good appetite. Great quantities of colorless urine. Sudden urge to urinate.
9. Glonoine: Great remedy for congestive headaches, hyperaemia of the brain from excess of heat or cold. Excellent for the inter-cranial, climacteric disturbances, or due to menstrual suppressions. Tendency to sudden and violent irregularities of the circulation. Violent convulsions associated with cerebral congestion. Feeling of pulsation throughout body.Pulsating pains.Confusion in head with dizziness. Head heavy, but cannot lay it on pillow. Cannot bear any heat about head.Better from uncovering head.Throbbing headache.Angio-spastic neuralgia of head and face.Very irritable.Vertigo on assuming upright position. Cerebral congestion and headache increases and decreases with the Sun. In female, headache during me**es. Rush of blood to head in pregnant women.
10. Iris versicolor: Best medicine for frontal headache with nausea and vomiting. Scalp feels constricted and right temples affected. Sick headache, worse on rest. Headache begins with a blur before eyes, after relaxing from mental strain. Headache mostly on right side, or changing sides in different attacks.
11. Nux vomica: Pressive, boring, dull pain mostly over left eye commencing in the morning and increasing through the day, growing milder in the evening, attended with dimness of vision, stoppage of the nose, sour and bitter vomiting. Constipation.Palpitation of the heart; worse from mental exertion, light and noise, in the open air, after eating. Hysteria, with profuse me**es, sedentary life, close mental application, abuse of coffee. Severe headache in occiput or over eyes with vertigo.At times vertigo with momentary loss of consciousness.Vertigo in morning and after dinner. Scalp sensitive; frontal headache with desire to press the head against something. Infra orbital neuralgia with watering of eyes.Constipation with frequent ineffectual urging, incomplete and unsatisfactory.
12.Thuja: Hemicrania of sycotic origin, mostly worse soon after midnight. Intermittent from 9 P.M to 5 A.M commencing slightly on crown of head, gradually extending over whole head and increasing to an excruciating height, with restlessness, must get out of bed. After the attack, feels paralytic weakness of the legs. Headache as if head is pierced by a nail. Left sided headache. Complete loss of appetite.
13. Silicea: Headaches from fasting. Vertigo from looking up; better wrapping up warmly and lying on left side. Pain begins at occiput and spreads over head and settles over eyes. Pain worse from every quick exertion, pressing to stool. Better from getting warm and after sleep. Swelling in glabella(the flat area of bone between the eyebrows). Swelling of lachrymal duct. Aversion to light, especially day light; it produces dazzling, sharp pain through eyes; eyes tender to touch and worse when closed. Vision confused and letters run together on reading. Styes. Appetite good; while eating the pain is much milder, but grows so much the worse again afterwards.
14.Pulsatilla: Tearing, pressing, stitching pain mostly on right side of the head, worse in the evening and at night, in the warm room and better from external pressure and in the open air. Aversion to eating and drinking; water tastes bitter; nausea and vomiting; oppression of chest, and chilliness. Mild yielding disposition; scanty, delayed me**es; disposition to looseness of the bowels. Wandering stitches about head; pains extend to face and teeth. Itching and burning in eyes. Profuse lachrymation and secretion of mucus. Lids inflamed, agglutinated.
15. cocculus: Excellent remedy for occipital headache. Pain starts in the lower part of the occiput and extends to the nape. The pain is worse after eating, drinking or smoking, lying on back of head and extended with a sense of emptiness and hollowness of the head.Vertigo and nausea especially when riding or sitting up.Pain in eyes as if torn out of head.Feels too weak to talk loud.