What to do if you have a migraine attack

Migraines and headaches are debilitating ailment, but if you are a sufferer there are measures you can take. Here’s are things you need to know about causes and possible cures. For a great number of people, recovering from a headache simply involves taking a couple of aspirin and getting migraines, sufferers may have no choice but to confine themselves to bed rest for ours or even days. Thankfully, due to advances in both conventional and complementary medicine as recent as the last 10 years, a great variety of relief is now available for headaches and migraines.

Women until they reach their late 50s, it’s actually women who tend to suffer with headaches more than men of the same age. The same applies for migraines. Fifteen percent of the female population suffer with migraines as opposed to five percent of men. This may be something to do with women’s dual role, at work and at home.

At the middle aged of women are twice as likely to be prescribed drugs for headaches than men, and men in the same age group are more likely to be referred to a specialist for their headaches.

A migraine is a headache accompanied by nausea and/or sensitive to light. Less common is a migraine with aura, or classical migraine, where zigzag lines may appear across your field of vision for around 20 minutes before the headache starts. Migraines could be described as a body shutdown. Everything stops functioning properly. So light, sound or smells could start bothering you. You may find it difficult to focus on things. The attack will last a few hours up to a few days. Some people with migraines say they experience one-side headaches, but migraine headache pain can be all over the head.

Thing to do if you have a migraine attack, ideally people should prevent getting to the stage of having symptoms, but once you get to that point, the best thing to do is to take some painkillers straightaway. Trying aspirin, ibuprofen or paracetamol to start with. Anything containing codeine is not ideal as it con makes the nausea worse. However, it’s important to stick with what works for you, if it’s being taken infrequently.

As migraines are often accompanied by a sudden drop in blood sugar, a sweet drink such as sugary tea or lemonade can help. Because of this change in blood sugar, many people crave sweet food, and may attribute their attack to having just snacked on chocolate or biscuits. This sugary cravings are in fact due to the migraine affecting their blood sugar levels. And there is no conclusive evidence that does cause migraines.

If nausea is a problem, then your GP can prescribe anti-nausea medication such as domperidone, which is available over-the-counter. If any dosage is becoming either more and more frequent or nothing is working, it’s essential to visit your GP to look at either preventative measures or prescription migraine drugs. Your doctor should help to find a treatment whether through conventional or complementary medicine that feels right and works for you.

They may also recommend you keep a headache or migraine diary, which is extremely helpful in determining the patterns of attack and whether the causes are dietary or hormonal. As treatments vary significantly from patient to patient, what works for someone else, may not work for you.