Possible connection between allergies and migraines
5:36 p.m. Thursday, December 28, 2006
Fred Belcher has two good reasons to look forward to winter. He's an avid skier. And it's the time of year he has fewer migraines.
“I would get the headaches, usually in the spring or in the fall time of the year," migraine patient Fred Belcher said.
Whenever his seasonal allergies kicked in, so did the debilitating headaches.
“Light would affect me. It would pretty much shut me down. I’d have to just curl up in a ball and lay down," Belcher said.
Fast Facts
- About 35.9 million Americans have allergic rhinitis.
- 25 to 30 million Americans suffer from migraines.
- There may be a connection between allergies and migraines. In one survey, patients with allergic rhinitis were 14 times more likely to have symptoms suggestive of migraine.
More information on migraines or other types of headache is available at the American Council for Headache Education, the National Headache Foundation or the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. For information on allergic rhinitis, go to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
Now there may be help. Dr. Min Ku studies the migraine-allergy connection.
“If you do have nasal allergies, you’re actually 14.3 times more likely to have migraine headaches than a person without nasal allergies," immunologist Dr. Min Ku said.
The most likely culprit is histamine. The chemical is released by immune cells during allergic reactions.
“We think that when nasal allergies occur, a lot of that histamine here can trigger that very first response in the development of migraine headaches, namely vasodilation," Ku said.
That's when blood vessels swell up and stretch.
“Our experience has been that if we treat the nasal allergies aggressively, that often times the migraine headaches get a lot better," Ku said.
Steroid nasal sprays or allergy shots may do the trick. Antihistimines for allergies don't work on migraines.
“These patients will do anything and everything to try to get relief and, you know, I want to say that there might be hope in this avenue," Ku said.
Hope that could help Fred hit the slopes more often.
Dr. Ku says many allergy patients are diagnosed with sinus headaches when they really have migraines. It's important to give your doctor a detailed description of your symptoms.
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