Migraineurs - those who regularly suffer migraine headaches - will be pleased to know that Migraine Relief is possible. You simply have to wait until you get old enough.

According to the American Headache Society, approximately 28 million people in the United States suffer from migraine headaches. But results of a new study offer Migraine Relief hope - of sorts.

Migraine Relief

Most physical complaints worsen with age. The disease progresses, and the sufferer can expect increasing problems. Not so with migraine, says Carl Dahlof, M.D., Ph.D, a neurologist and medical director and founder of the Gothenburg Migraine Clinic in Gothenberg, Sweden. “It does seem that in most people migraine is not a progressive disease,” says Dahlof.

Dahlof presented the results of a 12-year study at the American Headache Society annual meeting in June 2007. Those results were that, with age, migraineurs can expect to experience fewer, less excruciating migraine episodes, and individual episodes will not last as long. In other words, Migraine Relief comes with age.

Beginnings and Endings

Most migraineurs begin to have migraine around age 20. The study of Dahlof and his colleagues indicates that the average duration of migraine is about 25 years. That means that you can expect Migraine Relief around age 45. If you had your first migraine around age 30, you will have to wait until 55 or 60 for Migraine Relief.

The Rest of the Story

Dahlof admitted that age was not the only factor involved in Migraine Relief. Heredity seems to play a part, with those having a family history of the complaint experiencing more difficulty gaining Migraine Relief. It seemed, too, that Migraine Relief was more easily gained by men than by women.

The old advice of “nip it in the bud” also seemed to be a factor in Migraine Relief. Studies show that those who undertake early management of migraine are more likely to experience Migraine Relief over time.

Seymour Diamond, M.D., founder of the Diamond Headache Clinic and executive chairman of the National Headache Foundation in Chicago was not a study participant. But Dr. Diamond has observed similar Migraine Relief in his own patients. “Migraine problems do tend to decrease with time,” he says. “We find as people age they get fewer migraines. After age 50 or 55, they often decline. But in some people, they never do.”

Helpful Tip

If you are a migraineur looking for Migraine Relief, there are steps you can take to increase your chances of finding it. Exercise and diet, if necessary to reach and maintain a healthy body weight. Establish and maintain a consistent, regular sleep pattern. Reduce stress.

CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional. This information is for educational purposes only. If you are seeking Migraine Relief, please speak to your doctor.

Migraine sufferers, also called migraineurs, are constantly looking for migraine headache treatment and migraine prevention. The excruciating headaches drive migraineurs from one medication to another.

Migraine prevention or treatment with nasal drops may be the answer. Recent studies suggest that lidocaine, via nose drops, may give quick Migraine Relief - or even migraine prevention.

Lidocaine for Migraine Headaches

Lidocaine is a topical anesthetic, and is usually injected to produce numbness in a small area of skin.

Lidocaine for migraine headaches, however, is a 4 percent aqueous solution that can be administered by way of nose drops. It is available only by prescription, and shows great promise in actual migraine prevention and treatment.

How Lidocaine Works for Migraine Headaches

It is thought that lidocaine works in migraine prevention and treatment by numbing part of the trigeminal nerve. Pain relief begins almost immediately, within minutes of spraying or dropping the medication into the nose. Pain can even be avoided in many migraineurs.

Research on Lidocaine for Migraine Headaches

Lidocaine may give Migraine Relief faster than other medications currently available. It also seems to effect migraine prevention if given during the aura phase. So say California researchers who presented their study at the American Society for the Study of Headache in San Francisco.

Those researchers were Dr. Morris Maizels, of Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills, California, and Dr. Ann Geiger, of Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, California. These doctors randomly assigned 131 patients either intranasal lidocaine or saline nose drops to treat their own migraines. The study lasted for one month. Results? Those who used lidocaine for migraine headaches got relief within 5 minutes during 31 percent of treatment attempts. That same rate was found in only 6.7% of those who used the saline nose drops.

Among Dr. Maizels’ interesting findings was the case of a 15-year old boy who had suffered migraine since age 2 and desperately wanted migraine prevention.

This boy experienced migraine prevention in all but 2 of 75 migraine headaches by using lidocaine intranasally. The boy took lidocaine during the aura phase of his migraine headaches. He had experienced the visual disturbances of aural phases since he was a toddler. With lidocaine, however, his usual 10-minute aura had no following headache. Lidocaine worked as migraine prevention for him.

“It’s clearly a local effect on a nerve that has connections to the brain,” said Dr. Maizels. He noted, however, that much more study is needed to determine if lidocaine really can be used as migraine prevention.

A “Journal of the American Medical Association report suggests that lidocaine does have migraine prevention benefits for some migraine sufferers.

Migraine headache is best defined, to many people, as an especially huge beast of a headache. They fail to realize that migraine comes in various forms. For the most part, few of us have heard of an ocular migraine.

Ocular migraine manifests itself almost entirely through the visual disturbances of an aura. The migraineur may never have an ache in the head at all. The entire episode is a matter of seeing things strangely.

Ocular Migraine Symptoms

How do I know if I have an ocular migraine? I may not know for sure that it is ocular migraine. I may believe I am experiencing changes in my vision. I may even think I am losing my eyesight. The experience can be quite terrifying.

I might ask three physicians what is wrong, and get three different answers. Even if all three agree that it is ocular migraine, they may view it differently. The first may understand ocular migraine as an episode in which the sufferer has the visual disturbances of a migraine aura, but never a headache. The second might define ocular migraine as one-sided blind spots in front of the eyes. The third might say that ocular migraine is temporary blindness that lasts less than an hour and is associated with a headache.

So how do I know if I have an ocular migraine? Here are specific symptoms.

1. Ocular migraine normally affects only one eye at a time. The affected eye may experience one or more of the symptoms.

2. The eye affected by ocular migraine seems to be looking through a window pane flowing with water. Whether you are looking at a child in the room with you or at a computer screen, it will seem as though a watery window is between one eye and the object you are viewing.

3. In ocular migraine, the area you can see with that one eye without shifting your gaze will seem to have holes in it. It will be as though you are looking at a photograph from which someone has cut holes. There will be nothing where the holes are. You may be looking at a group of people, and be unable to see one face. Maybe you are looking at papers on your desk, and the ocular migraine punches holes in the papers.

4. The ocular migraine-affected eye may see everything shaded by gray. A sky of blue becomes a gray-blue sky. Pink lemonade becomes gray-pink.

5. While the eye affected by ocular migraine gives a distorted image, the other eye remains clear and normal.

6. Symptoms of ocular migraine are temporary. During your first episode, you may feel frightened and wonder if you will ever see properly again. You will learn with each ocular migraine, however, that within an hour, your eyesight has returned to what is normal for you.

7. Ocular migraine interferes with normal daily activities. Since one eye is experiencing visual disturbances, there are many normal activities that you will not be able to perform adequately. You may have to take an hour away from work. You will not be able to read, drive, operate machinery, or do other things that require full eyesight.

Testing for Ocular Migraine

You will want to seek advice from a physician, but you can test yourself before doing so. While experiencing what you think may be ocular migraine, cover or close one eye. Repeat with the second eye. If the visual disturbances are limited to one eye, you may be having ocular migraine.

CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional, and presents the information here for educational purposes only. Please see a physician if you have unexplained visual disturbances.