Publication:

Study relationship between multiple sclerosis and migraine

Background Each person experiences headaches in his/her life. Some studies have shown a significant relationship between Migraine and MS. In these patients there can be a variety of clinical symptoms such as muscle weakness, sensory loss, ataxia, optic neuritis. Optic neuritis in MS is a relatively common symptom that can cause blurred vision, headaches (especially frontal ones) and painful eye movements. Headache is a clinical symptom that makes people visit neurologists. There are several diagnoses for headaches including migraine. In this study, we evaluated the possibility of a significant relationship between migraine and MS.

Methods In this case-control study, 134 MS patients and 134 sex and age matched controls were selected randomly from all patients referred to hospital. Their information about MS and migraine was collected and analyzed by SPSS v.21.

Results The Mean age of cases in this study was 41.5±9.4 years. The gender of 73.13% of patients was female. In MS patients with chronic headaches, 36 people (42.9%) and in Controls 22 people (38.6%) had migraine. In this study it was found that people with MS, experience more migraine attacks compared to the controls (OR=3 and P=0.05). Further investigation showed that, unlike aura type, migraine without aura had a significant relation with the MS (OR=1.94 and P=0.04). Also, it seems that the number of migraine attacks in patients with MS is significantly more than the controls.

Conclusions Finally it seems that there is a positive association between MS and migraine. The relationship between migraine without aura and MS is obvious, but the relation between aura type and MS is not clear, yet.