I think there’s a connection between migraines, head injury and PTSD flashbacks. On an anecdotal level I’ve found the kind of mild hallucinatory experience that is a migraine aura to be very similar to my experience of PTSD flashbacks but more recently I’ve had good cause to imagine that the link is more than just in my head. It might be in yours too.
In a recent study of war veterans back from Iraq, 39 percent of migraine sufferers also had PTSD, compared to just 18 percent of veterans without migraines. This group of almost 1 in 5 soldiers has nearly double the risk for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychiatric troubles, according to this study.
In other studies on migraines there seems to be a link able to be drawn between migraines with aura and the possible incidence of PTSD in this population. For example, a study by Tobias Kurth and colleagues found that:
“At baseline, 5,125 women (18.4 percent) reported a history of migraine; of the 3,610 with active migraine (migraine in the prior year), 1,434 (39.7 percent) indicated aura symptom.”
Is it just me or does that seem like a pretty big indicator of some sort of link if about 39% of migraine sufferers have a visual aura, and about 39% of Veterans who are also migraine sufferers have combat-induced PTSD. I’m not saying for sure that the two groups overlap but it seems pretty likely.
It’s possible that neurologically something very similar is going on in migraines and in PTSD. That’s a pretty significant overlap to have if there isn’t. I’m just throwing this out there -
What if the link lies in similar neurological mechanisms acting behind both flashbacks and migraine auras?
Now, it’s possible that the migraines may just be adding fuel to the fire in terms of bringing on flashbacks, I can’t say. My pet theory of the moment is that the changes of blood flow to the brain which accompany migraine auras are probably very similar to those that occur with flashbacks. It’s therefore possible that the one could make you more prone to the other.
In other recent results from studies on soldiers returning from Iraq there is also a strong correlation between concussion and PTSD:
“Nearly 44% of soldiers who lost consciousness were diagnosed with PTSD, compared with 27% of those who had concussions but remained conscious, 16% of soldiers with other injuries, and 9% of uninjured soldiers. Depression also often accompanied loss-of-consciousness concussions.”
In light of these latest results it seems that physical traumatic injury to the brain is indicated as a factor in the development of PTSD. Perhaps it’s the interruption/alteration to the way the life threatening event is visually processed at the time and/or later processed in memory together with the blood flow changes in the brain, which would occur in all of the above scenarios that makes PTSD more likely? Given the effectiveness of treatments like EMDR (which directly acts to disrupt visual processing of traumatic memory) I think it might even be fair to say that seems probable. Maybe the gap between what we define as physical trauma, and what we class as mental/emotional trauma isn’t as big as we’ve so far assumed? At the very least this is evidence that PTSD is a more complex neuropsychological response than had previously been assumed, which clearly merits further research.
As a Viet Nam veteran I suffered with PTSD for more than 10 years. Only then, there wasn’t a name for it. There was barely any recognition of it at all. PTSD is not, in most cases, physical. It’s emotional. It arises out of an inability to deal with what you saw and/or what you did while in combat. It arises out of the inability to disassociate from the fear one feels in combat. It arises out of the insanity and the inhumanity of War. Physical? Sometimes. Emotional? Always. The cure is love, kindness and understanding. And time.
I’d like to be funny and quip that “I like alcohol myself”
But this isn’t funny, sounds like you suffer too much.
I wish you good health and a happy life.
Yeah, LouCeeL. I agree, it isn’t physical most of the time. But that it could be in some cases, or that sometimes elements of PTSD are like other neurological symptoms we’ve seen in diseases we know more about, just might give us some clues for where researchers should go.
If there are similarities between elements of PTSD and other neurological conditions then that might open up treatment options. As you point out, we desperately need those options because PTSD studies is in its infancy, and for so long so many went untreated, unacknowledged even. There still isn’t any particularly definitive treatment for it – there are a few medications being trialled but it’s hardly a booming research area yet. My point is partly that it should be.
Heh Yeah, well, it is a little funny warriorwitch since one of my favourite quotes is by Hunter S. Thompson: “I hate to advocate drugs, violence, alcohol or insanity to anybody but they’ve always worked for me.”
But thank you for the kind wishes. They’re appreciated.
Actually stress make you prone to both. In a migraine your vessels dialate too much, so I would imagine that in the fight or flight of PTSD/trauma that your vessels would do the same. I have always had problems with migranes until I started talking about some of the things that happened to me. I saw a significant reduction, almost elimination. Now, when I need to talk about something that I am having difficulty doing, I get a migraine. A bad migraine with flashbacks is the worse pain. However, I have never had auras.
Yep, definitely CC. In children migraines are in fact one ’sign’ of traumatic stress. They were for me. I started getting them, in their common childhood form, as stomach migraines when I was about 7.
It was stress really, in combination with a whole heck of a lot of jaw tension so I relate to the relief you can get from beginning to speak the unspeakable. It was the energy it took to hold it inside for so long that brought on the migraines. The pain of a migraine with a flashback is killer, indeed I have passed out from the combo punch before. Not fun.
I had really bad TMJ and psoriasis (?) and a constant rash on the back of my neck since infancy. Once, I started talking everything resolved…amazing what the brain can do. I also am prone to ocular migranes and sinus headaches. Sheesh!! However, I have not passed out…Yikes. Although I am prone to fainting. Wow, this is facinating…let’s drag a neurologist into the discussion. I do know that migranes and sinus headaches are related. The rash on my neck is the most amazing thing…I mean I was born with it practically and my mother told my hubby that it will never go away. So did the doctor. Everything is amazing what a little bit of unrepressed memory and verbalization can do. What other aliments do you think you have due to your trauma?
From what I understand, PTSD is much like a memory that gets “trapped” in the hippocampus (the short term memory storage area), directly and strongly associated with the amygdala (the brain structure responsible for emotional experience).
I believe that ALL experience varies in levels of emotional reaction:
Some experiences have very little emotional reactivity, and therefore we’re able to process those experiences into two categories: 1. We retain the information surrounding the experience (and store it in our cortex– the long term memory storage area) or 2. We relent the information out of our memory (and therefore never “learn” the experience).
Other experiences have extreme levels of emotional reactivity, and we store them in our short term memory in order to protect ourselves from future danger. A good example of this evolutionarily is that when we were cave(wo)men, and we went to the watering hole, we appreciated (positive emotional reaction) the fresh water. At the same time, when we encounter something life-threatening (like a lion– fearful, adrenaline-rich emotional reaction) at this water hole, we are going to have a dually associated emotional memory of the experience. The fear reaction alone may be significant enough to keep the memory of the lion at the front of our mind any time we desire to go back to the watering hole– thus protecting us from being eaten in future encounters.
In my opinion (and perhaps supported by research, though I have little reference other than things I’ve heard/read), physical and emotional/mental experience have the same effect on the neurotransmission or memory storage functions of our mind. They’ve said that imagining something causes the same neurological processes as actually physically experiencing something.
So, when you have an emotional memory, with the main “purpose” of self-protection, if that memory has a strong emotional attachment, PTSD is the mechanism that “allows” us to re-experience the important life-saving memory so that it’s fresh in our minds.
Perhaps the connection between migraines and flashbacks is that both are a defense/protection mechanism. As CC mentioned, both are certainly responses to stress– and in some way or another our bodies always give us the feed back it needs in order for us to know we’ve got to change something we’re currently doing in order to protect ourselves. I’m not entirely sure we’ve figured out with 100% certainty what migraines are telling us to do/not do– (maybe drink more water?) but I’d venture to believe you’re on to something when you say that they are similar in experience and therefore may be similar in neurological activity.
Anyway, what I so garrulously am trying to say is that I think you’re not far off the path of what’s really going on in our brains when we experience either of the symptoms of flashbacks vs. migraines.
Yep, Ash, that’s the lines along which I was thinking. That’s what my therapist tells me happens anyway – that the flashbacks (the emotional re-experiencing of a physical event) actually reinforce the fear.
The research I’ve read doesn’t seem to be very clear whether this is our brains attempting to process the memory further or if it’s only a protective mechanism. Some say both even.
At any rate, I’m glad you’re with me on the possible linkage factor even if it is a lot like fumbling in the dark.