| Classic and Common Migraine Attacks
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| Migraine without Auras (Common Migraine) |
| Definition of Migraine without Auras: To be defined
as a migraine without aura, a patient should have at least five attacks
that have the following characteristics: |
| A. Each untreated, or unsuccessfully treated, attack must last
four to 72 hours. |
| B. It must have at least two of the following four qualities: |
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Pain on one side of the head. |
| • |
Pulsing or throbbing pain. |
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The pain must be severe enough to impair or prevent
daily activities. |
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The pain must be intensified by exertion, such
as walking up stairs. |
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| C. During a headache at least one of the following symptoms must
also be present: |
| • |
Nausea, vomiting or both. |
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Pulsing or throbbing pain. |
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Sensitivity to light and noise. |
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| In addition, other neurological or medical conditions
that might be causing this pain must be ruled out or if they occur,
they are not related in time to the suspected migraine. |
| Migraine with Auras (Classic Migraine) |
| Definition of Migraine with Auras: To be defined
as a migraine with aura, the patients must have at least two attacks
that have three out of four of the following events. |
| • |
One or more fully reversible aura symptom
suggests to the physician that they originate in the cerebral
cortex or brain stem. |
| • |
At least one aura symptom develops gradually
over more than four minutes or two or more aura symptoms occur
in succession. |
| • |
No single aura symptom lasts more than an hour. (There may be successive aura symptoms, however, that extend that time, but each one should not last more than 60 minutes.) |
| • |
The headache itself may begin before, at the same time, or at an interval of no more than an hour after the hour. |
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| For much more information ... |
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