Contents:
- Medical Video: Update on Migraine
- What is a migraine?
- Why are women more susceptible to migraines?
- 1. The female brain is more sensitive
- 2. Hormones
- 3. How the brain works differently
- Can migraines be prevented?
Medical Video: Update on Migraine
Do you often experience side headaches or migraines? What often causes your migraine to occur? According to research, women are four times more prone to migraines than men. Why are women more susceptible to migraines?
What is a migraine?
Migraine is the onset of a headache accompanied by a powerful throbbing sensation. This headache usually occurs because of changes in your brain activity. The pain caused by migraines can be very painful and unbearable.
In some cases, the movements you do when you experience a migraine can actually aggravate the pain you feel. Sometimes even the symptoms caused by migraines can be followed by an increase in your sensitivity to sound, aroma, and light, and tingling in the legs and arms, which may be accompanied by numbness. Unfortunately, some studies have found that there is indeed a close relationship between women and migraines.
Why are women more susceptible to migraines?
1. The female brain is more sensitive
Women's brains tend to be more sensitive. Simple changes such as room temperature and changes in sleep patterns can even trigger sudden emotional changes in women. This sudden emotional change then causes an abnormal wave to occur in the brain (cortical spreading depression).
According to a neurologist from the University of California, Andrew C. Charles, this wave can cause inflammation and pain, the ups and downs of blood flow and nerve cells are depressed in the brain. Thus, the emergence of this wave is often associated with migraine.
2. Hormones
Every month, women will experience menstruation. Before entering the menstrual cycle, there is a phase where estrogen levels will decrease and prostagladin fatty acid levels will increase, with a difference that tends to be significant and sudden. This condition turns out to be able to trigger a decrease in chemical compounds contained in the brain (serotonin) and cause blood vessels in the brain to contract and experience dilation, thus triggering migraines.
Apart from during menstruation, this situation can also occur when the woman enters menopause and when using hormonal contraception (birth control pills).
3. How the brain works differently
Research conducted by the Boston Children Hospital with Harvard Medical School successfully revealed that there is a difference between how the male brain works with women when experiencing migraines. Research carried out by doing scan to 44 participants' brains found that when women experience migraines, the area that functions to accommodate the brain (gray matter or gray matter) experiencing thickening in both parts that function in pain processing (posterior insula and precuneus).
Uniquely, this reaction does not occur in the brains of men who are experiencing migraines. The researchers then made a comparison of the effects of this condition and found that thickening in both areas communicated and coordinated in causing pain.
Can migraines be prevented?
Unfortunately, it is not yet known specifically what can cause migraines. Each migraine with women may even have triggers that are different from each other. Migraines may generally not develop worse, but reported from Healthline, experiencing migraines can increase your risk of having a stroke twice as large.
Knowing what can trigger your migraines, by taking notes on your own migraine triggers, might prevent you from getting migraines, at least because of the same causes.
