Conclusions: Our results show that there may be defects in the anaerobic or proximal glycolytic pathways in migraine patients, evident in stressful situations. We also conclude that the FIT may be useful for research on migraine pathophysiology. (Source: Medical Science Monitor)MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

3 out of 5 stars Two Unusual Pediatric Causes of Dilutional Hyponatremia. Boetzkes S et al.  Pediatr Emerg Med July 2010;26:503-505. Abstract Hyponatremia, especially if it is acute and develops rapidly, can be associated with significant and sometimes severe consequences: nausea, vomiting, headache, decreased mental status, seizures and coma.  Fatal cases have been reported. This paper, from Belgium, presents two cases of clinically severe pediatric hyponatremia in which the ultimate cause was not immediately obvious: 1)  A 10-year-old girl was treated for bed-wetting with desmopressin — a synthetic replacement for antidiuretic hormone.  After 2 year of treatment enuresis returned and the anticholinergic drug oxybutynin was added. Five days later the child developed headache and...

CONCLUSION:: Spontaneous epidural abscess is a rare condition and diagnosis is often delayed. The finding of Horner syndrome led to imaging of the cervical spine and diagnosis of epidural abscess. Early intervention resulted in resolution of neurologic symptoms and a successful pregnancy outcome. PMID: 20664432 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Obstetrics and Gynecology)

A 39-year-old woman experiences a severe occipital headache and vomiting. She describes it as "the worst ever headache of my life." She experienced a similar event 2 days ago. What is the diagnosis? Medscape (Source: Medscape Today Headlines)

Dr. David Dodick of the Mayo Clinic explores the link between migraines and patent foramen ovale. (Source: NYT Health)

Amy, one week prior to visiting Children's Hospital Boston As a high school sophomore, Amy Rucki was admitted to Children’s Hospital Boston with a brain tumor. She was followed by ABC camera crews, who were taping for the medical documentary, Boston Med (tune in tonight at 10 p.m. on ABC). Though she wasn’t included in the final cut of the show, you can watch exclusive mini-episodes about her experience online (part one here, part two here). Below, Amy reflects on being a teen, brain surgery and her long road to recovery. In the spring of 2009 I began feeling sick, on and off, for seemingly no reason. My blood pressure was higher than normal, my heart would occasionally palpitate and every now and again I’d get strong flu symptoms. It was confusing and slowed me dow...MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

(Source: CNS Drugs)

The association of staphylococcus aureus with a syndrome called toxic shock syndrome (TSS) was made in 1978, although cases of patients with similar findings had been reported as far back as 1927 . The syndrome was characterised by: a high fever, headache, confusion, conjunctival hyperaemia, a scarlatiniform rash, subcutaneous oedema, vomiting, watery diarrhoea, oliguria, and a propensity to acute renal failure, hepatic abnormalities, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and severe prolonged shock. These findings were described in seven children. From five of these, phage-group-1 staphylococci were isolated. Interestingly the four girls included in the series may have been using tampons, no link was made with this at the time. (Source: Burns : Journal of the International Society for Bu...

Migraine headache, tension headache, cluster headache — how each type affects you. (Source: MayoClinic.com Full Feed)

Can birth control pills help prevent the onset of migraines tied to a woman's menstrual periods? An expert responds. (Source: NYT Health)

The UK government's rejection of a damning Commons report on homeopathy leaves Martin Robbins baffled and depressedThe government has released its eagerly anticipated response to the Science and Technology Committee's Evidence Check on Homeopathy and, incredibly, it's even worse than I thought it would be. The verdict is "business as usual", with the main recommendations of the committee ignored in a fog of confusion and double-think.You get a sense of this confusion very early on, with lines like: "given the geographical, socioeconomic and cultural diversity in England, [policy on homeopathy] involves a whole range of considerations including, but not limited to, efficacy." I actually have no idea what this means – do medicines work differently in Norfolk from the way they work in Hamps...MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

We appreciate the comments made by Cairns. Cairns asserts that post-Lyme syndrome is associated with a delay in antibiotic treatment, with neurologic symptoms in the acute phase, and with multiple erythema migrans skin lesions, but this conclusion is not evidence-based. The retrospectively controlled studies that she relied on in her meta-analysis certainly included such groups, but also were likely to have included patients with single erythema migrans skin lesions, and misdiagnosed patients. Our prospectively controlled study of patients with a single erythema migrans skin lesion may be considered as a starting point to address the question of whether post-Lyme disease syndrome exists in adults. The findings of our study do not support its existence, because we found that the frequency o...

A 58-year-old man with diabetes mellitus presented with a left earache and decreased hearing. Despite antibiotic treatment for otitis media, followed by treatment with another antibiotic and wick placement for refractory otitis media and newly diagnosed otitis externa, dizziness and headache developed. (Source: The American Journal of Medicine)

(American Chemical Society) Just as cooking helps people digest food, pretreating polycarbonate plastic -- source of a huge environmental headache because of its bisphenol A content -- may be the key to disposing of the waste in an eco-friendly way, scientists have found. Their new study is in ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health)

Conclusion: Rufinamide may be an effective and well-tolerated adjunctive drug for the treatment of refractory childhood-onset epileptic encephalopathies other than Lennox[ndash]Gastaut syndrome. Rufinamide was most effective in patients with drop-attacks and (bi)frontal spike[ndash]wave discharges. (Source: European Journal of Neurology)MedWorm Message: Register for MedMatcha, MedWorm's medical advertising network, and receive $5 free advertising.

Migraine and obesity are two public health problems of enormous scope that are responsible for significant quality of life impairment and financial cost. Recent research suggests that these disorders may be directly related with obesity exacerbating migraine in the form of greater headache frequency and severity, or possibly increasing the risk for having migraine. The relationship between migraine and obesity may be explained through a variety of physiological, psychological and behavioural mechanisms, many of which are affected by weight loss. Given that weight loss might be a viable approach for alleviating migraine in obese individuals, randomized controlled trials are needed to test the effect of weight loss interventions in obese migraineurs. Large-scale weight loss trials have shown...

Conclusions: MTHFR genotype is associated with specific clinical variables of migraine including unilateral head pain, physical activity discomfort and stress. (Source: BioMed Central)

Abstract  To determine whether there are differences in the adverse effect profile between 1, 2 and 5% Lidocaine when used for occipital nerve blocks (ONB) in patients with occipital neuralgia. Occipital neuralgia is an uncommon cause of headaches. Little is known regarding the safety of Lidocaine injections for treatment in larger series of patients. Retrospective chart analysis of all ONB was performed at our headache clinic during a 6-year period on occipital neuralgia patients. 89 consecutive patients with occipital neuralgia underwent a total of 315 ONB. All the patients fulfilled the IHS criteria for Occipital Neuralgia. Demographic data were collected including age, gender, and ethnicity. The average age of this cohort was 53.25 years, and the majority of patien...

Abstract  The vast majority of menstruating women experience uncomfortable symptoms during the premenstrual phase of their menstrual cycles. Although many women do not require specific treatment of their symptoms, approximately 20% to 50% report moderate to severe premenstrual symptoms and about 5% meet the diagnostic criteria for premenstrual dysphoric disorder, the most severe manifestation of premenstrual symptoms. While the etiology of premenstrual symptoms remains unclear, several theories have implicated sex steroids and neurotransmitters in the development and manifestation of symptoms. Further complicating the delineation of etiology is that premenstrual symptoms can be somatic, psychological, or behavioral, as well as a combination of all three. Developing successf...

Abstract  Neurosurgical procedures to treat pain are mainly destructive and involve the spinal cord and occasionally the brain. Targets include the spinothalamic tract, the trigeminal tract nucleus, the midline ascending visceral pain pathway, the brainstem spinal lemniscus, the thalamus, and the cingulate gyrus. Since the introduction of intrathecal opioids, the need for neurosurgical destructive procedures has been in decline. In recent years, cordotomy, trigeminal tractotomy, and dorsal root entry zone (DREZ) operations are the neurosurgical procedures most often utilized to treat cancer pain. The addition of CT guidance to spinal cord pain pathway ablation was a major addition and refinement to the procedure. Here the authors review the latest techniques and recently pu...