My Mother/Myself: Migraine Headaches are ...( Experts urge sufferers to break the c...),Health

Experts urge sufferers to break the cycle of suffering

'Migraine Million' fundraiser honors one-in-a-million moms

CHICAGO, April 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The mother/daughter relationship can give some women headaches -- literally. Yet, on Mother's Day we choose to put that aside and bring flowers.

This Mother's Day, the National Headache Foundation is suggesting that women discuss the subject head-on. If women pay more attention to the triggers, patterns and symptoms of their own headaches -- including how they may mirror moms' -- they can use the information to get better care.

If one parent has migraines, children have a 50 percent chance of also having them. If both parents have migraines, the chance for a child to be predisposed climbs to 75 percent. Even if a distant relative has migraine headaches, a 20 percent chance exists that any offspring will be prone.

When mom describes one-sided, throbbing and pulsating head pain, accompanied by nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and noise in various combinations, she probably has or had migraines. And, if mom had headaches around her period, she probably had menstrual migraine, which is related to changes in the levels of the female hormone estrogen during a woman's menstrual cycle.

Experts urge sufferers to break the cycle of suffering and get the help not available a generation ago

Merle Diamond, M.D., associate director of the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago and member of the National Headache Foundation Board of Directors, knows first-hand the effects of hereditary migraines. She is a migraine sufferer as are her four children and husband.

Dr. Diamond says that while our parents may have suffered through the pain, today we don't have to. "Compared to just a generation ago, we know so much more about how to care for migraines. But because h
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