Is high heat and humidity a trigger for your migraines?
This is not uncommon!
What can you do about it? Get your neck assessed!
There is a lot of evidence in the past 20 years debunking the belief that headaches are caused by vasodilation of blood vessels in the brain. Dilatation is the consequence of head pain, not the cause (May A, Kaube H, Büchel C, Eichten C, Rintjes M, Jüptner M, Weiller C, Diener HC. Experimental cranial pain elicited by capsaicin: a PET study. Pain 1998;74(1):61-6635). Dilatation may be further sensitizing an already sensitized brainstem. What sensitizes the brainstem are various forms of noxious afferent (nerve signals going towards the brain) input…
Stiffly held neck joints in the upper 3 vertebral joints (C0-C1, C1-C2, and C2-C3) as well as tight, hypertonic muscles such as inferior oblique (spanning C1-C2) lead to noxious nerve input travelling to the brain, thereby ‘sensitizing’ the brainstem. See the muscle in the picture below:
Chronic sensitization and hyper excitability of neurons in the trigemino cervical nucleus / brainstem occur following prolonged nociceptive input (Baranauskus G, Nistri A. Sensitization of pain pathways in the spinal cord: cellular mechanisms. Prog Neurobiol 1998; Feb;54(3):349-65), (Wall PD, Woolf CJ. Muscle but not cutaneous C-afferent input produces prolonged increases in the excitability of the flexion reflex in the rat. J Physiol 1984 Nov;356:443-58).
Yes, referred head pain, or ‘headache’ is OFTEN from a sensitized brainstem. And neck structures, are a prime driver of this…
Getting back to the weather… it can further sensitize things (as can caffeine, tannins in wine, and other things).
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