ABSTRACT
Many famous individuals from the worlds of arts and sciences have suffered from migraine headaches. Formal diagnostic criteria for migraine and other headache disorders were published by the International Headache Society (IHS) in 1988; however, these remain a guide and have a well-recognized group of false-negatives. This chapter describes the migraine attack and its variants and their acute and preventive treatment based, in part, on the presence of any coexistent or comorbid disease. The typical headache of migraine is unilateral, throbbing, moderate to marked in severity, and aggravated by physical activity. The headache and associated symptoms of migraine with aura are similar to those of migraine without aura. In contrast to a transient ischemic attack (TIA), the aura of migraine evolves gradually and consists of both positive and negative features. Familial Hemiplegic Migraine (FHM) is an autosomal dominant, genetically heterogenous form of migraine with aura with variable penetration.
