Washington, January 09: Suffering from migraine? There is possibility that you could have been physically or emotionally abused during childhood, American scientists have claimed.
Researchers at the American Headache Society’s Women’s Issues Section Research Consortium found that incidence of childhood maltreatment, especially emotional abuse and neglect, are prevalent in migraine patients.
The study published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, also said that migraineurs reporting childhood emotional or physical abuse and/or neglect had a significantly higher number of comorbid pain conditions compared with those without a history of ill-treatment.
“Our study found that while childhood maltreatment is associated with depression, the child abuse-adult pain relationship is not fully mediated by depression,” said lead
researcher Dr Gretchen E Tietjen of the University of Toledo Medical Center in Ohio.
For their study, Tietjen and his team conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1348 patients diagnosed with migraine at 11 health centers.
Childhood maltreatment was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) – a 28-item self-reported quantitative measure of childhood abuse and neglect.
They found found migraineurs who reported childhood emotional abuse or physical neglect had a significantly higher incidence of comorbid pain conditions compared with those without a history of maltreatment.
About 61 per cent had at least one comorbid pain condition and 58 per cent reported experiencing childhood trauma either by abuse or neglect.
The number of different maltreatment types suffered in childhood correlated with the number of comorbid pain in adulthood.
“Since migraine onset preceded onset of the comorbid pain conditions in our population, treatment strategies such as cognitive behavioural therapy may be particularly well suited in these cases,” added Dr Tietjen.
The researchers also said that physical abuse can lead to arthritis, while emotional abuse can give birth to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) as well as arthritis.
“In women, physical abuse and physical neglect was associated with endometriosis (EM) and uterine fibroids, emotional abuse with EM, and emotional neglect with uterine fibroids,” the researchers said.
–PTI