The study, published in Workplace Health and Safety, examined the effects of a neck stretching exercise intervention on nurses’ primary headaches. It used a pre-test and post-test two-group design with a total of 60 female staff nurses employed by a medical center in Taiwan.

Participants in the experimental group (a total of 30 patients) practiced neck stretching exercises while experiencing headaches. The participants in the control group (the other 30 patients) managed their headaches as they would usually do.

According to Dr. Elliot Shevel, South Africa’s migraine surgery pioneer and the medical director of The Headache Clinic, a structured questionnaire was used to collect data on headache intensity at baseline, and at 30 minutes and 1 hour after intervention.

“Decrease in headache intensity of the experimental group was significantly larger than that of the control group,” says Shevel. “The conclusion was that neck stretching exercises is an effective method for treating primary headaches.”

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Migraine affects one in five women. Sufferers are all too familiar with the throbbing, often one-sided headache made worse by any movement, the crippling nausea, sometimes with vomiting, and the acute sensitivity to light, sound, smells and/or touch.

Doctors now recognise migraine as a complex neurological condition with several distinct stages.

What causes migraine?

Until recently, migraine was often attributed to the widening of blood vessels inside the head. Experts now believe that the cause of migraines is due to certain brain regions being oversensitive to some stimuli, such as dehydration, sleeping too much or too little, skipping a meal, strong smells, sunlight, even eating certain foods or changes in weather. These stimuli excite the trigeminal nerve ( the main sensory nerve in the head), causing it to release chemicals that transmit pain signals to the brain and inflame (widen) the blood vessels.

New research also points to muscle tension in the jaw and neck aggravating the trigeminal nerve, setting off the same chain of events. Before pain sets in, one in five sufferers have auras – unnerving neurological disturbances, such as seeing stars, or blind spots in visions, trouble finding words; and feeling tingling and numbness, or even vertigo.

To read more on this article by Women and Home, visit the related web post.

His migraines were so bad, that as a young boy he….

To read more on this article by Michelle Pieters from Drum Magazine, click here.

Two recent studies, published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine and in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health respectively, showed that headaches increase with higher temperatures, lower humidity and higher levels of fine particulate air pollution.

In the first study, patients who were admitted to the emergency department of a hospital due to a migraine headache, were monitored in terms of the weather conditions at the time of their admission. A total of 3 491 patients formed part of this study and a statistically significant correlation was found between daily the number of patients and the daily maximum temperatures, mean temperatures, minimum temperatures and daily temperature changes. The study also found that more patients presented with headaches and migraines when the humidity was low.

The second study was undertaken to determine whether there was an association between fine particle matter in the air and daily outpatient numbers being treated for headaches in Taipei in Taiwan. Data was obtained for a five year period. It was found that the higher the presence of fine particulate air pollution, the greater the number of patients with headaches and migraines.

Dr Elliot Shevel, South Africa’s pioneer in the field of migraine surgery and the Medical Director of The Headache Clinic, says that weather-related phenomena can trigger headaches.

“The change of seasons, rain, lightning, thunder and even barometric pressure, can be triggers for headaches and migraines. Every person has different triggers, but the key is to identify your specific anatomic cause for headaches and migraines, not just the trigger,” says Shevel.

Why do the seasons impact headaches?