Genetic Test Available For A Severe Kind Of Migraine
The second most important things you can do to get treatment for migraines or headaches is to get properly diagnosed so you can get effective treatment. The first most important thing is to ask for help. Buut since headaches and migraines are often signs of so many conditions, it can be hard to narrow the diagnostis down. For one kind of migraine (a kind that apparantly doesn’t have it’s own name yet), the diagnostic process has just gotten easier.
In this kind of migraine, one side of the body becomes very weak. This obviously makes a person pretty helpless during attacks. Since this also happens to be a sign of epliepsy or stroke, most people with this severe kind of migraine are treated for epilepsy or a stroke instead of migraines.
Enter Genetic Test, Stage Right
Since both epliepsy and stroke are such severe conditions, a doctor will most likely go with the worst case scenario for a diagnosis with the patient’s life uppermost in the doctor’s mind. But at least a genetic test can now help the doctor get you the right treatment quicker.
The Lieden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands has discovered that this severe kind of migraine usually runs in families and therefore, all people in those families carry one of three specific genes. This test lets you know whether you have these genes or not.
The genes are (drumroll, please):
- CACNA1A
- ATPIA2
- SCN1A
More details than you ever wanted to know about the study and the findings are in the Dec 4 issue of Neurology.
Hope this helps. Now go look at some yummy Brad Pitt photos. Looking at Brad Pitt does help some people with migraines, although I have yet to find a clinical study on it. This needs looking into!
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