Headaches With a Family History

Why can most people cure a headache with an aspirin, while others have toretreat to a darkened room for days to get relief? For the 10 percent of the population who suffer from migraines, says one researcher, it may be all in the family.

Bertil Persson, Ph.D., of the University of Lund in Sweden, thinks that the roots of these debilitating headaches may reach all the way back to childhood, when many cases of migraine have their onset. In a study published in the journal Headache, Persson surveyed 30 pairs of siblings in which one had migraines and the other did not. He found that they'd had distinctly different experiences growing up: "migraineurs" had fewer friends, received less encouragement from their parents, and reported less trust in them than did their migraine-free siblings. Persson adds that this is not necessarily the profile of a migraineur, but of someone who expresses emotional distress through physical symptoms; siblings who had ulcers, asthma, and other psychologically-influenced health problems were likely to have had childhoods as difficult as the migraineurs.

Given that his research also indicates that migraineurs tend to be more sensitive and neurotic than most, Persson suggests that in addition to medication, people with serious headaches consider psychotherapy: it's been shown to reduce migraine attacks by as much as two-thirds.