Non-headache symptoms in a migraine attack

Abstract

Objective To characterize non-headache symptoms during the migraine attack phase in migraine patients. Methods We enrolled in the present investigation 71 patients with migraine with and without aura who had sought medical treatment in our department from January 2010 to January 2011. We used a self-made migraine questionnaire to investigate associations of the non-headache symptoms with the sociodemographic factors, subtypes, severities and attacks of the headache in the patients. Results There were no significant differences in the number of non-headache symptoms among patients with different ages, genders, education levels, subtypes, severities, mean attack frequencies per month (P＞0.05). The most frequently reported non-headache symptoms were nausea (87.3％),phonophobia (81.7％) and mood change (69.0％).The incidences ofphonophobia,sleep disorder and osmophobia were significantly higher in patients without aura than in patients with aura (P＜0.05).Conclusion Migraine attacks are often accompanied by a variety of non-headache symptoms of which the most frequently reported ones are nausea,phonophobia and mood change.Patients without aura tend to have more phonophobia,sleep disorder and osmophobia than those with aura. Key words: Migraine; Non-headache symptom; Mechanism