Migraine Linked To Childhood Abuse

Friday, January 8, 2010, 11:26

There is a strong suggestion that migraine is linked to childhood abuse. Migraineurs who had been physically or emotionally abused as children and/or had suffered neglect had noticeably higher number of comorbid pain conditions compared to those who had not been abused. Most of the people have at least one comorbid pain condition and half of them had a history of abuse or trauma.

It was seen that the number of maltreatment types suffered in childhood were related to the number of comorbid pain in adulthood. While childhood maltreatment is associated with depression, the child abuse-adult pain relationship is not fully mediated by depression. Since migraine onset preceded onset of the comorbid pain conditions in our population, treatment strategies such as cognitive behavioral therapy may be particularly well suited in these cases.

A new study by the American Headache Society's Women's Issues Section Research Consortium concluded the above facts. Gretchen E. Tietjen from the University of Toledo Medical Center and his team examined 1348 headache clinic patients with physician-diagnosed migraine to come up with their findings. The study has been published in the January issue of Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain.