Headache
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To assess pain-related attentional biases among individuals with episodic migraine. ⋯ In light of the large sample size and prior pilot testing of presented images, results suggest that episodic migraineurs do not differentially attend to headache-related facial stimuli. Given modest evidence of attentional biases among chronic headache samples, these findings suggest potential differences in attentional processing between chronic and episodic headache subforms.
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To assess the prevalence of headache in clinic and support group patients with celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) compared with a sample of healthy controls. ⋯ Migraine was more prevalent in celiac disease and IBD subjects than in controls. Future studies should include screening migraine patients for celiac disease and assessing the effects of gluten-free diet on migraines in celiac disease.
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The aim of this study was to investigate the utility of pain descriptors (pain quality, pain intensity) assessed in a questionnaire to discriminate tension-type headache (TTH) from TTH plus migraine in a sample of adolescents. ⋯ Pain intensity and quality assessed by questionnaires are not suitable to discriminate TTH from TTH plus migraine. This may lead to inaccurate prevalence estimates in epidemiological studies and may mislead practitioners in forming diagnostic hypotheses. The exclusion of these pain descriptors in questionnaires should be considered. More research systematically assessing the diagnostic utility of verbal pain descriptors in primary care and epidemiological samples is needed.
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While nausea is a defining feature of migraine, the association of nausea with other headache features and its influence on the burden of migraine have not been quantified. Population-based data were used to elucidate the relative frequency and burden of migraine-associated nausea in persons with migraine. ⋯ High-frequency migraine-associated nausea is common and is a marker for severe, debilitating migraine. Nausea makes an independent contribution to migraine-associated disability and impact. Management strategies that take nausea into account could reduce the burden of migraine. Nausea is an important target for monitoring and treatment.
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Allodynia is considered a phenomenon of central sensitization that may lead to migraine transformation, lowering the attack threshold. Migraine triggers are factors that may induce headache attacks in susceptible individuals. We hypothesize that because allodynia decreases the migraine-attack threshold, allodynic migraineurs are more susceptible to triggers than the non-allodynic ones. ⋯ Migraineurs with moderate/severe allodynia had more triggers than those with no/mild allodynia. It is unknown if those with moderate/severe allodynia are more susceptible to triggers, or repetitive stimulation of the trigeminal system by triggers resulted in moderate/severe allodynia.