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Being in pain so fierce that the only recourse is to hide in a dark, quiet room until it is over several times a year would make anyone sad. Migraineurs, though, are five times more likely to develop clinical depression than people who do not have these debil­itating headaches. Con­versely, people who are depressed are three times likelier than happy people to become migraineurs.

Many sci­entists view the inter­twining of migraine and depression as a chicken or egg situation. They are patently comorbid, but does one cause the other? If so, which one starts the process, the migraine or the depression? The answer is not that simple. Migraines, depression, and, unsur­prisingly, insomnia, a state asso­ciated with both con­ditions have something in common. All three are asso­ciated with neur­o­trans­mitter defi­ciencies in the brain.

Doctors believe that while they are related, depression and migraine headaches have distinct causes with a similar neuro­biology. For years, doctors blamed depression in migraineurs on their res­ultant loss of quality of life due to headaches. Now it looks as though the link is a biologic shared mechanism rather than psychology.

One danger for clin­ically depressed migraineurs is possible drug inter­action between their depression med­ication and their migraine drugs. In July 2006 the FDA recognized one such danger, that of mixing triptans for migraines with SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) or SNRIs (serotonin and nore­pinephrine reuptake inhibitors), used to treat depression and mood dis­orders. Com­bining the drugs can lead to a con­dition called serotonin syndrome.

Serotonin syndrome occurs when there is too much serotonin in the body. Symptoms include hal­lu­cin­ations, increased heart rate and body tem­perature, fast changes in blood pressure, and gastrointestinal upset. Sometimes a patient has no choice but to take these med­ic­ations together, but they need to weigh their options with their doctor and be mon­itored closely for serotonin syndrome.

This article was ori­ginally pub­lished on www.HypnotherapyClinic.info by Con­sultant Clinical Hyp­no­therapist & Pys­cho­therapist Noel Bradford

Tags: clinical depression, Depression, hallucinations, headaches, migraine, mood disorders, Neurological disorders, Neurology, pain, Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, serotonin syndrome, Tryptamines
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