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WHO HAS HEADACHES AND M IG RAI N ES? * 13

headaches are also often commonly associated with menstruation. However, to complicate the issue, some women say that their migraines are less severe during menstruation!

Box 2.

Research in brief: menstrual-related migraines.

Holm, Bury and Suda (1996) were interested in the relationship between menstruation, migraine and stress in women. They selected 12 women migraineurs and matched them with 12 other women who did not have migraines. In that way they could compare the normal effects of menstruation on stress with any interference in this relationship that might be related to migraines. They gave the migraine-prone women questionnaires on stress and coping, and asked them to complete a diary for a month, recording their headaches. It appeared, from their results, that at certain points on the menstrual cycle the women were less able to combat stress - that is, their coping strategies were not as good as the control group, and their migraines increased at these times. The relationship between stress and migraine varied, depending on the menstrual cycle itself. The researchers say that all of these factors interact with each other, so that when menstruating, women may experience morę stress and therefore morę migraines. Their psychological coping mechanisms are also affected. Thus, we can see that if we are to understand migraines in women we ought also to be ready to understand their menstrual patterns. We must remember, however, that this study only recorded one month of menstrual activity and with a rather smali number of women. Psychologists always try to have rather larger numbers of volunteers in their studies so that their findings are representative of the population as a whole.

During pregnancy, another time of great hormonal activity, a proportion of women claim that their headaches or migraines are less severe, but there are some who feel that they are worse. This shows that we cannot simply explain migraine in terms of what is happening in the body, sińce roughly the same thing happens to all women when they are pregnant, at least in terms of Chemical and physical changes. Rather, it seems that bodies, and minds, can react differently to the same events. What causes a migraine in one person can, theoretically, prevent it in another. Migraine can have its first occurrence