A paroxysmal disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of headache, with or without associated visual and gastro-intestinal disturbances. Allopathic medicine considers the underlying cause of migraine to be unknown. The Phytotherapist, as with most holistically orientated therapies, can achieve excellent results through focusing on a number of factors which suggest causal links. Specific herbal remedies can prove exceptionally successful if used in the context of address the whole body and environment of the patient. Attacks can occur in early childhood, but most patients first develop symptoms between the ages of 10 and 30.
Many migraine patients have family histories of the problem.
The immediate causation appears to relate to spasms in the muscular walls of the blood vessels of the brain and scalp. These signs of an imminent attack are probably due to intra-cerebral vasoconstriction, and the head pain to dilation of scalparteries. All such symptoms may clear just before the onset of pain or merge into it. The pain my be unilateral or generalized but tend to follow the same pattern in particular person. Attacks may happen daily or only every several months.