Relationships Among Migrainous, Vascular and Orthostatic Symptoms

Abstract

A headache symptom questionnaire was filled out by 766 undergraduate university students and 258 reported one or more headaches per month. Headaches characterized by one or more of the main migrainous symptoms (unilateral pain, gastrointestinal disturbance and focal neurological symptoms) were reported to be more severe, pulsatile, of longer duration, and associated with facial pallor and signs of cerebral vascular instability more frequently than headaches accompanied by few or none of the major migrainous symptoms. Additionally, hunger was reported to trigger headaches associated with migrainous symptoms more frequently than non-migrainous headaches. The results are consistent with the proposal that vascular involvement is one of the factors underlying a continuum of headache with migraine as one extreme.