Possible migraine causes and what triggers this pain!

Do you sometimes experience extreme headache with additional signs and symptoms such as vomiting and nausea? Does light or sound make it even more difficult to cope with the pain? Chances are that your headache is not just a usual tension type headache, but migraine. Many people do not understand what migraine is and what migraine causes are. If you know the various causes, it will be helpful to keep them off.

About the migraine causes:

When you are talking about the causes of migraine, it must be mentioned that the exact reasons of this type of headache are not clearly known. However, a relationship of this pain with the brain chemicals and nerves has been identified.

When the brain stem interacts with the trigeminal nerve, which is a major pathway of pain in the brain, it leads to the occurrence of this pain. To be more elaborate, this interaction leads to the release of certain brain chemicals that are known as neuropeptides. These chemicals cause the pain in your brain. With the increase of these neuropeptides, the level of serotonin drops significantly. Serotonin, on the other hand, regulates the pain in your brain. However, as serotonin levels drop, the severe pain is felt, usually on one side of your head. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) is a neurotransmitter that is one of the major causes of migraine.

Triggers of migraine:

Though the exact migraine causes are not clearly known, there are certain external factors that trigger this pain. These external factors or triggers can vary from person to person; but there are certain factors that seem to be common in most cases. These are –

• Foods, drinks and food additives:

Processed and packaged foods and meats, aged cheese, salty foods and food additives like MSG, sweetener aspartame and other tastemakers can trigger migraine headache.

Even alcohol and caffeinated drinks are found to trigger migraine headaches.

• Hormonal changes:

One of the strongest triggers of migraine is hormonal change. When women undergo menopause or are pregnant, they experience more migraine attacks than usual. In fact, before and during menstrual cycles, women suffer from more migraine attacks. That is why; it is often found in statistical data that women suffer from migraines more than men.

• Environmental condition:

Barometric pressure, change in weather, etc. can trigger migraine.

• Sensory stimuli:

Migraine causes are often associated with sensory stimuli, such as strong smells like paint thinner, perfume and passive smoke, etc. or even bright light and loud sound.

• Stress and sleep pattern:

If you are too stressed or tired and if you haven’t slept enough, it might trigger this pain. In fact, too much of sleep or change in your sleeping patterns can lead to migraine attacks.

• Medicines:

Certain medicines, especially vasodilators and oral contraceptives can lead to migraine attack.

Now that you have known about the mechanism of migraine, as well as migraine causes, you need to make sure that these are eliminated from your life as much as possible. It is always a good idea that you visit a doctor to identify your headache type and its causes.