Current pain and headache reports
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Oct 2011
Review Comparative StudyAre menstrual and nonmenstrual migraine attacks different?
Migraine is the second most common headache condition next to tension-type headache. Up to one fourth of all women have migraine, and 20% of them experience migraine without aura attack in at least two thirds of their menstrual cycles. ⋯ Future studies should be based on the general population. Collection of both prospective and retrospective data is warranted, and headache diagnosis base on interviews by physicians with interest in headache are more precise than lay interviews or questionnaires.
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Disordered sleep is such a prominent symptom in fibromyalgia that the American College of Rheumatology included symptoms such as waking unrefreshed, fatigue, tiredness, and insomnia in the 2010 diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia. Even though sleep recording is not part of the routine evaluation, polysomnography may disclose primary sleep disorders in patients with fibromyalgia, including obstructive sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome. In addition, genetic background and environmental susceptibility link fibromyalgia and further sleep disorders. ⋯ The effect of exercise is contradictory, but overweight or obese patients with fibromyalgia should be encouraged to lose weight. Regarding the approved antidepressants, amitriptyline proved to be superior to duloxetine and milnacipran for sleep disturbances. New perspectives remain on the narcolepsy drug sodium oxybate, which recently was approved for sleep management in fibromyalgia.
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Oct 2011
ReviewTreatment of chronic migraine headache with onabotulinumtoxinA.
Chronic migraine headache remains an exceedingly difficult entity to manage. Treatment of chronic migraine headache with onabotulinumtoxinA has recently been shown to be effective in reducing the severity and frequency of chronic migraine headache, in the PREEMPT trials, a landmark achievement. However, the studies use a primarily fixed dose and site approach to treatment, allowing some individualized injections. However, the authors do not address the issue of myofascial trigger points as potential triggers of migraine that could be inactivated using onabotulinumtoxinA, despite several studies that support the role of myofascial trigger points in initiating some migraine headaches.
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Headache and endometriosis show some similarities in their clinical and epidemiological features that are probably due to the influence of female sexual hormones on both disorders. Epidemiological studies indicate that they are comorbid disorders. ⋯ A common link to the widespread use of estroprogestins may seem less probable. For physicians dealing with women with either of these disorders, awareness of the comorbidity may be helpful in the treatment of the patient.
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Curr Pain Headache Rep · Oct 2011
ReviewUnderstanding multisymptom presentations in chronic pelvic pain: the inter-relationships between the viscera and myofascial pelvic floor dysfunction.
Patients presenting with chronic pelvic pain frequently complain of multiple symptoms that appear to involve more than one organ system, creating diagnostic confusion. The multisymptom presentation of chronic pelvic pain has been frequently described. This article describes four proposed explanations for the clinical observation of multisymptom presentations of patients with chronic pelvic pain. These include the concepts of viscerovisceral convergence; viscerosomatic convergence; hypertonicity of pelvic floor muscles creating visceral symptoms along with somatovisceral convergence; and central sensitization with expansion of receptive fields.