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migraine with aura

Will Your Infant Develop Migraines? 2 Things to Look For

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My near-mantra is that migraines are not a problem in the head. Rather, these headaches are a sign that something is wrong with your overall health. The evidence supporting this position is plentiful and some of this research can be found in a recent blog post that refers to migraines as a “progressive brain disorder.”

While migraines can begin at any age, it is not unusual to have them start as a toddler.  I recently had a patient whose migraines began as early as 2 years of age.  As a parent, I can think of few things more achingly painful than watching your innocent child suffer the debilitating pain of a migraine while all you can do is watch helplessly.  No wonder some parents who seek help from pediatric neurologists resort to neurotransmitter-altering medications given at a time when the brain is undergoing some of the most dramatic changes of his or her lifespan.

But what if there is another answer? What if there was an early warning sign that something was wrong with your little one’s system?

What if you could change it THEN, possibly derailing the chance that your small child will suffer with migraines?

As you can guess, I wouldn’t bring this up unless there was an answer.

This particular study looks at the relationship between an infant who experienced infantile colic and his or her later risk of developing chronic migraine headaches. Here’s what they found:

  • Children with migraine were 661% more likely to have had infantile colic.
  • If the child had migraine without aura the risk was still massive at 701%.
  • Migraine with aura 573% .
  • However, this association was not present with tension-type headaches.

In other words, somewhere there is an incredibly strong connection between infantile colic and migraines. There are several mechanisms that might explain the association.

One possible explanation is that the gut produces a very high level of neurotransmitters, which is why the gut is frequently referred to as the “second brain.”  An alteration in the production of these neurotransmitters in the gut could clearly affect brain function.

As an example, 2/3 of the body’s serotonin comes from the gut.  When the gut is inflamed, it will produce even more serotonin.  This could result in the infant’s brain being bathed in an unnaturally high level of serotonin, resulting in a lifetime of a sort of serotonin deficency. Serotonin clearly has an influence on the brain and some migraine medications (like amytriptaline) are used to treat migraines.

The other explanation can start with a personal story.  When my little Keegan was an infant, he experienced colic. As any parent can tell you, colic can be heartbreaking and frustrating, especially in the middle of the night when the parent is going on virtually no sleep.

While most cases of colic are said to last about 3 months, Keegan’s was handled in about 4 weeks through a combination of probiotics, a visit to a pediatric chiropractor and cutting dairy out of mom’s diet while she continued to nurse.

Food allergies.

There is absolutely NO doubt that food allergies can contribute to chronic migraine headaches.  The changes made for Keegan were designed to shift his immune system back into balance (probiotics for Th1 stimulation, allergen avoidance to tone down Th2 pathways).  An altered immune system can produce inflammation that is bad for the brain and bad for the blood vessels leading to the brain.

This study can give us further insight into what might cause migraines later in life. It may be that, in those who suffer from chronic migraine headaches AND had infantile colic, the identification and avoidance of food allergies and calming any inflammation in the gut may be a critical piece to the puzzle of solving migraine headaches for you or someone you care about.

Migraine Headaches and Seizures Linked

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I have stated for years that the causes of chronic migraine headaches and epilepsy are the same. While not generally accepted, it is consistent with current research.

The finding of a genetic link between migraines and epilepsy have been all over the news since this article hit the mainstream media earlier this month.  I have had a standing Google alert for “migraines and epilepsy” for quite some time now.  Nothing was on the radar screen on the Internet until this study hit.

For those of you who know, I have a particularly strong interest in migraines and epilepsy and have spent the past 6-7 years working on my book, “Migraines and Epilepsy: You Are Not Alone.”  During the writing of this book, it has been very common for me to be asked about the combination of the two conditions, because they are not generally thought of in the same sentence.  This includes most specialists dealing with epilepsy and with migraines.

However, the underlying problem with both of these conditions are very, very similar and this particular study lends weight to this concept.

Basically, researchers looked for families that had several epileptics in the family so they could basically single out a family with a strong genetic predisposition to seizures.  Seizures don’t always run strongly in families, so this was the researchers way to kind of “narrow the pool” so to speak.  They then looked at the presence of migraine with aura within these families and found a definite link between the two (Tweet this).

So what does this really mean?  When I think genetics traits, I think of enzymes, because genetic uniquenesses that change the speed of how an enzyme runs is the most common difference or commonality in conditions that run in families (this is called a single nucleotide polymorphism, or SNP for short).  With a genetic link between migraines and epilepsy, I can clearly envision an enzyme that affects how our cells generate energy (the technical term would be SNPs present that affect the mitochondrial energetic pathway).

If several family members have problems generating energy for the brain cells, this can result in different outcomes along the same path.  In one family member it produces a seizure disorder.  In another family member a migraine with aura.

My hope for this study is that we don’t view these as “comorbidites,” meaning that these two conditions just happen to coexist but don’t have much relationship to each other (like high triglyerides and high blood pressure).  Rather, we need to view these two conditions as having the same basic problem, but with a different outcome depending upon the individual.

As an example, (and a bad one, but it’s close to bedtime as I write this) consider stress.  People under extreme levels of stress may experience different outcomes.  Stroke in one, heart attack in another.  And cancer in a third.  All stemming from the same problem, but leading to different outcomes dependent upon uniqueness’s present within the individual’s makeup.

Overall, this post was designed less to educate and more to inform.  If you are a migraine headache sufferer or someone who experiences seizures, pay attention to things that you may learn that help the other condition–it may benefit you as well.

ARE EVERYDAY HEADACHES DANGEROUS?

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Last update December 19, 2014

Are everyday headaches dangerous?
Naeblys/Dollar Photo Club

I’ve been a strong opponent of the way we treat migraines in this healthcare system.  In general, we keep trying different medications until the doctor finds a medication that reduces or stops the headaches.  Then we all jump up and down and pat each other on the back and call the process a success.  If this is the approach your doctor has taken, then there ARE times when an everyday headache can be dangerous to your long term health.

Why?  Because a migraine headache is unquestionably a cerebral (brain) manifestation of a systemic problem.  If all we do is medicate the headache, we just signed an early death certificate for the patient because we have not fixed the problem.  All we have done is control the symptoms.  The “problem” was not a deficiency of Topimax or Depakote or Lyrica.  Giving these drugs may control the symptoms, but in now way fix the problem that caused the headache in the first place.

So what is the problem?

A great place to look is at the blood vessels.  Our vasculature that brings blood to every cell of our body.  With this blood comes important nutrients, vitamins and minerals for a brain cell to function at its best.

When there is a problem with our blood vessels, our brain cells can’t get the nutrients it needs to make ATP.  In case you don’t remember back to high school biology, ATP is the “energy currency” of our cells.  It is what every cell needs to do anything and everything.  The more ATP available, the healthier the cell.  The less ATP available, the sicker the cell becomes.

In cells that require very high levels of energy, such as our muscles, our heart and our brain, this process is absolutely critical.  If the brain does can not get the nutrients it needs to make enough ATP, a migraine or a seizure may be the result.

Ok.  “So what exactly is the problem with poor vascular health”, you ask.  With few exceptions, no one has a heart attack before they have a problem with the blood vessels leading to the heart.  No one has a stroke without first having a problem with the blood vessels in the brain.  Dementia begins with poor blood supply to the brain.

If you don’t fix the vascular problem that is contributing to the migraine, you are allowing unchecking damage to your blood vessels to occur.  With enough time, this will lead to a heart attack, a stroke or the slow process of dementia and loss of your cognitive function.

Medications will NOT fix this.  In fact, in several cases they will make the process worse.

This is strongly confirmed by this current study linking migraine with aura and cardiovascular disease.  Strangely, the risk of stroke was massive (380% increased risk) in women with NO established risk factors for heart disease.  However, in those women who DID have risk factors for heart disease and experienced migraines with aura, the risk of having a heart attack was increased 334%.

In other words, you can’t win either way.  Having migraines with aura will either lead to a heart attack or a stroke.  The ONLY way to save yourself is to make the changes needed to improve your vascular health.

Sadly,  despite all this research, I have yet to EVER have a patient come in with migraines that were given any type of lifestyle advice by any other provider (specialists included).  So yes–Everyday headaches can be dangerous.  Even deadly.