Migraine and stroke

Migraine is a severe type of headache which often occurs with other symptoms such as nausea. It is thought that migraine can increase the risk of stroke, particularly in younger women. This factsheet explains more about the link between migraine and stroke and lists some useful organisations that can offer further information.

A migraine is an intense throbbing headache, usually one sided, that can occur with other symptoms such as nausea and sensitivity to light. Less commonly migraine occurs with an “aura”. This can include symptoms such as visual disturbance, tingling or numbness of one side of the body. Migraine affects approximately 15 per cent of the population, and two thirds of sufferers are women.

Migraine temporarily affects the arteries in the brain in that they constrict or tighten causing the blood flow through them to be reduced. This can cause symptoms such as nausea, visual disturbance, speech problems and vomiting. After the blood vessels have narrowed in this way, they then relax and can even become enlarged. This stretching of the vessel walls is a severely painful process. This, possibly together with muscle spasm, is what is thought to cause the headache. Not everyone who suffers from migraine headaches will experience these symptoms but if they do, they usually last for a short time only or intermittently. Although it is extremely rare, permanence of these effects does sometimes occur. It is possible that a person who has a stroke during a migraine attack may have other risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease etc and it is difficult in these situations to establish what actually caused the stroke.

Over the years, there has been some research done into a possible link between migraine and stroke, particularly in younger women. A research article published in the British Medical Journal on 2 January 1999 concluded that:

“Migraine in women of childbearing age significantly increases the risk of ischaemic but not read more