The journal of headache and pain
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Chronic Migraine (CM) is a disabling condition, worsened when associated with Medication Overuse (MO). Mindfulness is an emerging technique, effective in different pain conditions, but it has yet to be explored for CM-MO. We report the results of a study assessing a one-year course of patients' status, with the hypothesis that the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based approach would be similar to that of conventional prophylactic treatments. ⋯ Taken as a whole, our results suggest that the longitudinal course of patients in the MT-Group, that were not prescribed medical prophylaxis, was substantially similar to that of patients who were administered medical prophylaxis.
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There may be a link between right-to-left shunt (RLs) and brain white matter lesions (WMLs) in patients with migraine. In this study, we assessed the relationship between WMLs and RLs in Japanese migraine patients. ⋯ The prevalence of RLs was significantly increased in the WMLs positive group (n = 24) compared with the WMLs negative group (n = 83) (75.0% vs. 47.0%, p = 0.015). In prevalence of WMLs between MA and MWOA patients, there were no statistical differences (p = 0.410). Logistic regression analysis adjusted by age and disease duration of migraine identified an RLs-positive status as the sole determinant for the presence of WMLs (OR = 6.15; 95% CI 1.82-20.8; p = 0.003) CONCLUSION: Our study suggests a possible link between RLs and WMLs in Japanese patients with migraine.
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Periaqueductal gray (PAG) is the descending pain modulatory center, and PAG dysfunction had been recognized in migraine. Here we propose to investigate altered PAG texture features (quantitative approach for extracting texture descriptors for images) in the patients with medication-overuse headache (MOH) based on high resolution brain structural image to understand the MOH pathogenesis. ⋯ Texture Contrast could be used to identify the altered MR imaging characteristics in MOH in understanding the MOH pathogenesis, and it could also be considered as imaging biomarker in for MOH diagnosis.
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Little is known about the long-term course of headache in patients with moderate-to-severe headache due to traumatic brain injury (TBI). We evaluated the course of headache in patients with moderate-to-severe headache due to mild TBI. ⋯ The course of headache in patients with mild TBI continuously improved until 36-month follow-up. However, 13.1% of patients still suffered from moderate-to-severe headache at 36-month follow-up, for whom post-traumatic seizure and traumatic intracranial hemorrhage might be risk factors.
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The aim of this study was to investigate cytokine levels in the masseter muscle, their response to experimental tooth-clenching and their relation to pain, fatigue and psychological distress in patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) myalgia. ⋯ In conclusion, the masseter levels of IL-6, IL-7, IL-8 and IL-13 were elevated in patients with TMD myalgia and increased in response to tooth-clenching. Tooth-clenching increased jaw muscle pain and fatigue, but without correlations to cytokine levels. This implies that subclinical muscle inflammation may be involved in TMD myalgia pathophysiology, but that there is no direct cause-relation between inflammation and pain.