This was on cnn.com this morning:
Studies show that the headache-prone are especially attuned to changes in barometric pressure, rising temperatures, high humidity, lightning, and cloudy skies. Rebecca Kinney, a 31-year-old librarian from Newton, Massachusetts, calls herself a human barometer. Gray skies and rain on the way trigger excruciating pain. "The headache is usually on one side of my head, and it pulsates, as if someone is drilling into me," she says.
Why it hurts: The meteorological shifts are thought to trigger chemical and electrical changes in the brain that irritate nerves -- sometimes causing fairly dramatic pain. In fact, "50 to 60 percent of migraine patients will identify a weather change as the trigger for their headaches," Martin says.
What to do: On bad-weather days, Kinney puts an ice compress on her eyes in the morning. "Sometimes I can catch the headache before it gets worse," she says. Another trick: Record your symptoms and the weather to piece together patterns. Then check out the "Aches and Pains" forecast on Weather.com; it breaks down how the day is dawning in terms of temperature, barometric pressure, and wind patterns. Pretreat with 400 milligrams of ibuprofen a day or two before expected weather changes, says Mark W. Green, M.D., director of headache medicine at Columbia University. (Naproxen or aspirin may work, as well.) Health.com: Take that! for pain
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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