Case Of Ayurveda For Migraine

A 27 yr old female patient presented with symptoms of severe headache along with heaviness and slight numbness of the head. The pain aggravates while fasting, travelling, improper sleep or disturbed sleep, stress, exposure to heavy sound or intense light, strong smell of  perfumes. She had severe throbbing type of pain especially on one side of the head. It may be either left side or right side and it varies with the attacks. The symptoms are sometimes associated with nausea or vomiting. Usually the pain occurs on early morning and will persists for more than 3 days when no medications was taken. She was suffering from migraine without aura (common migraine) since almost 10 years. At the beginning the pain will only occurs at the time of stress like exams,etc and the intensity of the pain was not this much severe. But after 2-3 yrs the duration of attack began to reduce and the intensity of headache began to increase. Now she have headache almost in every week or once in 15 days. She feels really tired and at the time of attack and always preferred to take rest in a dark room. The pain will relieve only after taking pain killer injection and giving compressions to the head or by vomiting. This case can be diagnosed as Common Migraine i.e Migraine without aura.What is a migraine and how is it different from other types of headaches?  The migraine is one of the worse headaches a person can experience. It is described as a throbbing or pulsating pain that can be on one side of the head. It can begin in a specific area and then spread while it builds in intensity. A migraine is associated with nausea and vomiting. The person will also be sensitive to light, sounds and even certain smells. Sleeping can  be difficult and many people become depressed. They can last for a couple of hours or for several days. A person that suffers with migraine headaches will most likely have recurring episodes but they usually become less painful with age. There are two main types of migraines:The most common type is the “migraine without aura” and it can be felt on one side of the head or both . this type normally causes photophobia, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and mood swings. The second type  is the “migraine with aura”. Aura is a neurological phenomenon that is usually visual and they happen between ten and thirty minutes before the pain begins. The person will normally experience hallucinations or wavy images and bright shimmering lights at the edge of their vision. Some people experience a temporary loss of vision which is accompanied by dizziness, vertigo, numbness of the face, tongue and other extremities along with speech abnormalities and  weakness. Some of the other types of migraine headaches that are uncommon are called basilar artery, adomind, headache-free, carotidynia, ophthalmoplegic and status migrainosus. Some women suffer from menstrual migraines right before their cycle begin and some will develop this condition when pregnant or after they begin menopause.It is not known at this time what causes a person to have this type of headache but studies show that many times patients with this condition have a family history of migraines.they usually inherit sensitivity to the “triggers” that can  cause inflammation in the nerves and blood vessels surrounding the scalp and brain. These triggers are what makes a person have the migraine for the first time and some of them include certain types of alcohol such as red wine, caffeine, over-exertion, fatigue, environment, perfume, stress and certain medications.This condition which is called as Common Migraine in Modern medicine can be correlated to Arthevabhedaka in Ayurveda Classics.Arddhavabhedaka – a comparable clinical condition of migraine is a commonly occurring vascular headache presenting with pain on one half of the head as cardinal features. It is described as a separate clinical entity in the classics of charaka and susruta while vagbhata included this condition in the classification of vataja- siroroga. The general aetiological factors or causes of Ardhavabhedaka are:  Suppression of natural urges Over exposure to smoke,sunlight and snow Overindulgence in sports,sex,sleep and keeping awake Exposure to heavy breeze Drinking too much wine Looking down continuously for long periods Exposure to unaccustomed, anxious and raw smell Too much speaking Excessive intake of dry, rough food Fasting Due to all these causes the doshas will vitiates and gets localised at the head to produce diseases like headache.