Migraine related to painful skin problems

Sensitive skin sensations and pain are more common among patients with migraine compared to those with other types of headache. Cutaneous allodynia (CA) is the pain resulting from an innocuous stimulus to normal skin or scalp. Even daily activities like combing or brushing the hair, shaving, showering, and wearing glasses or earrings, can provoke the pain. The pain results from a short lived increase in the responsiveness of the central pain neurons that process information arising from the skin. This condition is more common in those suffering from severe headaches like migraine than other headaches. To look into the relationship between chronic headaches and cutaneous allodynia, British researchers mailed questionnaires to a random sample of 24,000 headache sufferers. The questionnaire included the Allodynia Symptom Checklist (ASC) as well as measures of headache features, disability, and other illnesses. 16,573 individuals returned complete surveys and these were analysed. It was found that 69 percent of migraine patients had cutaneous allodynia, compared with just 37 percent of patients with other types of chronic headache. Severe allodynia was noted in 12-29 percent of migraine patients, but in no more than 6 percent of patients with other types of headache. The symptoms of cutaneous allodynia were higher in individuals with major depression. In migraine patients, allodynia was found to be associated with high attack frequency, long disease duration and obesity. The results showed that allodynia was more common among women and those suffering from migraines had a higher risk of developing cutaneous allodynia than others. The researchers suggested that individuals with allodynia should be more aggressively treated in order to prevent migraine progression.