Migraine history linked with increased risk of PE

[lisainnj]

I had horrible migraines when younger, crippling in my first pregnancy. I took massive quantities of aspirin during the first two pregnancies, switched to ibuprofen when I had a little spotting in the third, still in large quantities - didn't know better. Big healthy babies. Fourth healthy pregnancy, knew better and headaches not so bad by then.

Preeclamptic pregnancy, lots of headaches. Attributed them to methyldopa and congestion. Was good, used very limited Tylenol, no more than 2 or 3 on a bad day and not most days, until near the end. Probably not good for a liver flirting with HELLP, though.

Maybe I should have just have gone for the massive doses of aspirin.

[mkvh]

quote:Originally posted by hols537

I'm really interested to follow and see where this all ends up. It seems far too coincidental to me. I've had migraines for a long time. Have even been treated with blood pressure medication to prevent them. I got a lot of migraines right through my first pregnancy. Got very few in between pregnancies and during the second (with awesome BPs). Now 3 months after my second pregnancy, I've been getting more migraines and appear to be on my way to CHT...

I'm with you, Holly! You described me to a "t". My migraines were awful during my PE pregnancy, and I'm getting them again now PP.

[caryn]

I've never had a migraine. I hardly ever even have headaches.

Now jetlag? That I have, with a vengance. :-)

[hols537]

I'm really interested to follow and see where this all ends up. It seems far too coincidental to me. I've had migraines for a long time. Have even been treated with blood pressure medication to prevent them. I got a lot of migraines right through my first pregnancy. Got very few in between pregnancies and during the second (with awesome BPs). Now 3 months after my second pregnancy, I've been getting more migraines and appear to be on my way to CHT...

[jgrumet]

I suffered from migranes up until I got pregnant. I haven't had them since.

[ozierja]

Here is something that came across my ASCP (pathology) list=serve today.

Hormones may increase frequency of severe migraines with aura in women, researchers say.
HealthDay (12/22) reported, "In women, hormones increase the frequency of an inherited form of severe migraine accompanied by visual disturbances called auras," according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. During the Massachusetts General Hospital study, researchers "found that mice expressing either one or two different CACNA1A mutations that lead to familial hemiplegic migraine in humans had increased susceptibility to spreading depression." Although, "female mice were more likely to have spreading depression than male mice...this difference was reversed if the female mice had their ovaries removed and then partially restored by replacement of the hormone estrogen." The investigators concluded that "both genetic and hormonal factors affect a person's susceptibility to migraines with aura."

I always thought hormones played a huge part for me. I had no migraines during pregnancy and tons before and after (with aura)...just interesting.

[caryn]

Luck, I expect.

Migraine is one of the few areas of research getting more attention than preeclampsia right now -- there are like 150 new papers a month on it in PubMed -- and the way human vasculature is regulated via inflammatory cytokines is so immensely complex that they were having a pretty hard time sorting it out.

The papers have titles like: Progressive cerebellar ataxia with variable episodic symptoms--phenotypic diversity of R1668W CACNA1A mutation. And since I haven't been reading about migraine for years I'll skip on trying to explain them unless I run across something that has really significant overlap with the science I understand from PE research. :-) I started paying attention to it a bit ago when there started to be signs of an overlap between the conditions, but I haven't made enough sense of it yet to explain it.

[darateacher]

Interesting. My mom has had bad migraines all of her life, and she had my sister and me...ZERO PE. But, I never get migraines, and very few minor headaches, and I had PE. how does that work?

[annes]

Wow, I am a headache sufferer, never migraine level, but pretty bad my whole life. Very interesting.

[alviarin]

Headaches and Migraines Are Associated With an Increased Risk of Preeclampsia in Peruvian Women

"Women classified as having migraines that began prior to pregnancy had a 3.5-fold increased risk for preeclampsia (95% CI 1.9–6.4) as compared with those who reported no migraines. Women with migraines during pregnancy had a fourfold increased risk of preeclampsia (OR = 4.0, 95% CI 1.9–8.2) compared with non-migraineurs.
...
Our findings are consistent with previous reports and we have extended them to the Peruvian population. Prospective cohort studies, however, are needed to more rigorously evaluate the extent to which migraines and/or its treatments are associated with the occurrence of preeclampsia."


For the abstract:
http://www.nature.com/ajh/journal/v21/n ... 0746a.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18202669