#MEwx Barometric pressure and Migraine Headaches

Do you subscribe to the old sayings that barometric pressure affects your health? Well read the following article that I found on the web dated last year.

Today: Migraine headaches

Feel It? 4 Ways Barometric Pressure Affects Your Health

By Angie Glaser

Jul 8, 2022

Can you feel a storm coming a mile away? Have you been told you're a human barometer who can sense changes in barometric pressure? You're not crazy and you're not alone. It is possible to feel that storm coming "in your bones" — or in your head.

"Barometric pressure is atmospheric pressure, the weight of the atmosphere," said Cynthia Armand, MD, an assistant professor of neurology at Montefiore-Einstein and the fellowship director at the Montefiore Headache Center in New York, during a Facebook Live chat hosted by the American Migraine Foundation. "It signals and lets us know what's going on.

"Barometric pressure changes affect our bodies in a handful of ways. Some people may be more sensitive to weather changes than others, like people with migraine or arthritis.

"If there's a fall in barometric pressure, that means a storm or some kind of weather change is coming," Dr. Armand said.

It's difficult to say the barometric pressure is solely responsible for extra aches, though. Weather shifts and storms come with other changes like temperature swings, rain or snow, and changes in the wind.

What Is the Barometric Pressure Today?

Your favorite weather app or website should tell you what the barometric pressure is today in your area. More important than the pressure itself, though, is whether it is rising or falling. For a migraine-specific weather forecast, check out Accuweather.com. There is also an app called WeatherX that will send you a notification when the pressure in your area starts changing.

Some of the ways weather and barometric pressure changes can affect your health include:

1. Headaches and Migraine Attacks

"What we found in our studies was the environment is probably one of the most important triggers for migraine attacks, " said Vince Martin, MD, director of the Headache and Facial Pain Center at the University of Cincinnati Gardner Neuroscience Institute, during the 2019 Migraine World Summit.

Dr. Martin is one of the leading world experts in migraine triggers like low barometric pressure, stress, neck pain, and food. He presented the latest research at the 2019 American Headache Society conference to over 1,300 doctors and headache experts.

"About 30 to 50% of all migraine patients think they have a weather trigger, but I would argue that because of the multitude of triggers with weather that many people may not even recognize they have a weather trigger."

Normal barometric pressure changes are one of the most commonly reported weather-related migraine triggers. Migraine attacks are thought to be triggered by environmental or biological changes, and that includes changing atmospheric pressure.

Armand explained, "Our head is made up of pockets of air that we call sinuses. Usually, those pockets of air are at equilibrium with the atmospheric pressure. When there's a change in that atmospheric pressure, it creates a change in what you're experiencing in your head and what's going on in the air around you. That shift is a migraine trigger."

The temperature changes that tend to come with changing barometric pressure are another migraine trigger. "Any temperature change, warm from cold or cold to warm can bring on a migraine attack," said Armand.

If the changing barometric pressure comes with a lightning storm, the chances of it triggering a migraine attack are even greater. Martin explained his fascinating research linking migraine and lightning:

"We published a study in 2013 in the journal Cephalalgia where we found that if there was lightning within 25 miles of the home residence of that particular individual, there was about a 25 to 30% increased risk of both new-onset headaches, which means the headache started on that day, or new-onset migraine.

"Then we also developed models where we're able to determine, well, was it the lightning or was it the other meteorological factors associated with a thunderstorm, like precipitation or barometric pressure?" he said. "Even after we accounted for those things, lightning was still a unique trigger for migraine."

 

Tomorrow I’ll post the parts of the article that deal with Blood Pressure and Barometric Pressure.