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Six million people – and mostly women – in Italy suffer from migraine. And every day, perhaps due to fatigue, excessive use of computers, stress, difficult digestion, many Italians report the classic circle to the head or a pain that spreads from the neck to the nape. Recognizing what you are suffering from is essential, also to implement the most suitable therapies.
This is the advice that comes from the experts on the occasion of the National Headache Day, promoted by the three scientific reference societies, SIN (Italian Society of Neurology), ANIRCEF (Italian Neurological Association for Research on Headaches) and SISC (Italian Society for the Study of Headaches).
Identikit of the headache
According to official data from the World Health Organization, headache it affects one in two people with episodes occurring at least once a year. The disease also affects the younger sections of the population: over 40% of children suffer from headache while 10 out of 100 children suffer from migraine, a common form of primary headache.
“In our country, 6 million people suffer from migraines, that is 12% of the population – comments Gioacchino Tedeschi, President of SIN – These are important numbers for which an early diagnosis can really change the progression of the disease, since it avoids important consequences such as the chronicity of the disorder and drug abuse “.
But how to tell if it is a migraine or a headache? In general terms there are two broad categories: primary headaches are disorders in themselves not related to other pathologies and are the most frequent, while secondary headaches depend on other pathologies, such as, for example, headache from head and / or cervical trauma, from cerebral vascular disorders (such as stroke), from non-vascular diseases of the skull (such as brain tumors, hypertension or CSF hypotension).
In turn, primary headaches include migraine, tension-type headache, cluster headache and are distinguished by the type of pain, intensity, location in the head, duration, frequency and other concomitant symptoms. .
Migraine it is characterized by a throbbing pain with moderate-severe intensity which, often, is localized in the middle of the head and face. The patient is unable to perform any of the daily activities because each action aggravates the pain and, sometimes (migraine with aura), the attacks are preceded by neurological disorders such as, for example, visual symptoms. The seizure usually occurs together with other ailments such as vomiting and intolerance to light and noise and can last from a few hours to 2-3 days. Two thirds of migraine patients are women.
Tension-type headache, on the other hand, it has a mild-moderate intensity, of a gravative or constricting type (classic head circle) lasting a few minutes or hours or even a few days, not aggravated by the usual physical activities and not generally associated with nausea or vomiting . It is the most frequent form of headache with a prevalence of around 80%. Genetic predisposition factors may have some influence in the development of tension headache as well as environmental factors including stress, fatigue, poor posture or reduced sleep hours.
Finally, cluster headache it causes shorter painful attacks (1-3 hours) very intense and stabbing that follow one another 1 or more times a day for a period of time of about 2 months (cluster), alternating with periods without pain. The affected area is the ocular one and, unlike the other two forms, cluster headache mainly affects men. Typically the episodes recur cyclically with a seasonal frequency or 1 or 2 periods a year.
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