Childhood Abuse Linked to Migraines

Abuse in Childhood Linked to Migraine and Other Pain Disorders
If you’ve experienced child abuse, either physical or mental, and currently experience migraines now, they may be interconnected.

From a recent Science Daily article (Jan. 6, 2010):

“Researchers from the American Headache Society’s Women’s Issues Section Research Consortium found that incidence of childhood maltreatment, especially emotional abuse and neglect, are prevalent in migraine patients. The study also found that migraineurs reporting childhood emotional or physical abuse and/or neglect had a significantly higher number of comorbid pain conditions compared with those without a history of maltreatment.”

In other words, there is a connection between past experiences of child abuse, and experiencing migraines.

“Our study found that while childhood maltreatment is associated with depression, the child abuse-adult pain relationship is not fully mediated by depression,” explained Dr. Tietjen.

How to Address This Issue
Here’s some advice:

“Researchers suggest that for persons presenting for migraine treatment, childhood maltreatment may be an important risk factor for development of comorbid pain disorders (i.e. migraines). “Since migraine onset preceded onset of the comorbid pain conditions in our population, treatment strategies such as cognitive behavioral therapy may be particularly well suited in these cases,” concluded Dr. Tietjen.”

What is cognitive behavioral therapy?

“Cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better, even if the situation does not change.” From the NACBT Online Headquarters

In other words, suppressing the frustration, anger, fear or not dealing with situations, pushing them away may be one factor causing migraines.

To find out more information, go online to this website: NACBT Online Headquarters.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Consultation, Figuring it out, Healing Power, Lifestyle & Stress, Root Causes of Pain. The entry is tagged under abuse, child abuse, cognitive behavioral therapy, head pain, headaches, migraines, NACBT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.