Hospital based Cross-Sectional Study of Menstrual Migraine in an Urban Slum Population

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Prevalence of migraine is higher in womenthan men.Incidence of menstrual migraine is more incomparison to premenstrual migraine.Migraine is a complexcondition with headache and sensory disturbances. This studywas carried out to analyze the incidence of different type ofmenstrual migraine in varying age group.Material and methods: In this study 155 women of agegroup 17 to 31 years taken. They were complaining of at leasttwo times migraine attack per month during menstrual cycle.They were advised to record the day of migraine i.e. on 5thdays before menstruation, 2 days before menstruation and 1stday of menstruation to 3 days following bleedingwith historyof headache, severity, attack duration and disability at workand association with aura or without aura, for 3 months.Thestatistical analysis was done under SPSS software by usingchi-square test.Results: We found that severe attacks occurred during thepremenstrual phase i.e. 5 days before onset of menstruationand it is more severe before 2 days of onset of menstruation.The severity of migraine in age group (17-21) years is higherthan other age groups. The incidence of migraine duringmenstrual period is more in comparison with the premenstrualperiod.Relative incidence of only migraine during menstrualperiod is found more i.e.70.09%, whereas migraine with aurafound more in premenstrual period, i.e.75%.Conclusion: The incidence of migraine in female increasesduring adolescent period and peaks during menarche due todelay in decline of oestrogen level. So preventive measures formigraine can be taken by individual awareness, establishmentof a stable oestrogen state and use of non-steroidal antiinflammatory agents.