The Causes of Migraine Headaches

by Marion Jones

Headaches in any type are always painful to the sufferer. However, some headaches, like migraines, for instance, can cause even more problems than just a headache. These problems could be nausea, light sensitivity and a banging pain in the head. Sometimes the headache acts on one side of the head, and other times you can feel the pain on both sides of the head at the same time.

The real causes of migraine headaches has yet to be discovered, although there are a few theories why we have migraine headaches. The most commonly held belief is that an alteration in the blood flow within the brain is one of the triggers that causes migraine headaches. Another theory about migraine headache is that maybe it could be caused by pain sensing chemicals called neuropeptides.

Many medical professionals think that neuropeptides relax the smooth muscle that surrounds the cranial blood vessels. This relaxation causes the blood vessels to dilate. This blood vessel relaxation increases the flow of blood and other cranial fluid to the brain. This increase in fluids is thought to be the cause of migraine headaches.

These cranial fluids cause inflammation, pain, sensitivity, tissue and blood vessel inflammation during the time of migraine headaches. Some people think that the aura that is sometimes seen during a migraine headache is caused by the constriction of blood vessels that became dilated during the beginning phase of the migraine headache.

Another theory about the reason for migraine headaches has been linked to genetics and inheritance. These theories say that a child of migraine sufferers will have a 50% probability of getting migraine headaches too.

The probability of inheriting migraine headaches become even greater if both parents are known to suffer from this painful type of headache. Should both parents be known to have frequent migraine headaches the chances of the child inheriting migraine headache symptoms is about 70%.

Now even though many professionals think that genetics plays a large part in migraine headaches the genes that may be considered as the causes of migraine headaches have not been identified or even isolated. When we begin to experience migraine headaches the only warning signs that we may receive are a throbbing pain in the temple area and slight nausea.

As the symptoms of the migraine progresses, the pain becomes much more severe. Unfortunately, since the causes of migraine headaches have yet to be found and we dont know what triggers these attacks, there are no medications to cure this kind of headaches yet.

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