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Published on: June 2, 2014
Acute and interictal allodynia in patients with different headache forms: an Italian pilot study
Carlo Lovati1, Domenico D'Amico, Pierluigi Bertora
1Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences L. Sacco, University of Milan, Italy.
Objective:
To investigate allodynia in patients with different primary headaches.
Background:
Many migraineurs have allodynia during headache attacks; some may have allodynia outside attacks; allodynia may also be associated with other primary headaches.
Methods:
A total of 260 consecutive primary headache patients presenting for the first time at a headache center, and 23 nonheadache controls answered written questions (subsequently repeated verbally) to determine the presence of acute and interictal allodynia.
Results:
We divided the patients into: episodic migraine (N = 177), subdivided into only migraine without aura (N = 114) and those sometimes or always reporting migraine with aura (N = 63); episodic tension-type headache (N = 28); chronic headaches (headache > or = 15 days/month, N = 52), including chronic migraine, chronic tension-type headache, and medication-overuse headache; and other headache forms (N = 3). Acute allodynia was present in 132 (50.7%), significantly more often in patients sometimes or always suffering migraine with aura, and those with chronic headache forms, compared to patients with migraine without aura and episodic tension-type headache. Interictal allodynia was present in 63 (24.2%) patients, with significantly higher frequency in those having migraine with aura attacks than controls and common migraine patients.
Conclusions:
Allodynia is not specific to migraine but is frequent in all headache patients: acute allodynia was reported in half those interviewed and in over a third of patients in each headache category; interictal allodynia was reported by nearly 25%.
