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Central Nervous System

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Migraine, Vascular Headache and
Premenstrual Tension

"...Approximately 10&037; of people in Western societies suffer from migraine or a variant at some point in their lives, but Crisp et al. [1] in a community of 5000 at Shipstonon- Stour reported the high figure of 25% in women. The incidence is higher than average in occupations demanding precise and sustained application of hand or brain, e.g. school teachers (about one in three), nurses, accountants and cashiers on the one hand, and tailors, embroiderers, watchmakers and lathe workers on the other. This appears to be due to autoselection [3]. People lacking the ability or willingness to maintain high standards, especially under pressure, gravitate to work that suits them better. Many patients with migraine also suffer from vascular (tension) headaches between attacks. These may be unilateral or bilateral and without nausea or visual phenomena. Because they may persist for days or weeks, sufferers find them very tiring and usually say they would prefer to have classical migraine which while of greater severity is of shorter duration..."

Multiple Sclerosis

"...A common and painful affliction affecting as many as 20% of people but in most only intermittently and with long remissions. Nevertheless, dental surgeons and GPs find the worst cases frustrating to treat. Cortisol pellets provide effective short-term relief but do not prevent another ulcer appearing in a few days in the most severely affected..."

Stroke

"...This was first described by Hulusi BehÁet, a Turkish professor of dermatology, in 1937 ("a tri-symptomatic complex with hypopyous iridocyclitis, oral aphthous lesions and genital ulcerations"). While a latent virus infection of a type somewhat similar to herpes simplex has not been excluded, interest of late has shifted to an immunological determinant, and consequently to some types of emotional stress acting through it..."

Subarachnoid Haemorrhage

"...the disorder is common but often overlooked in people past middle age, usually women. Because many of them have unresolved mourning and loss, their symptoms are too often attributed to depression. Some are depressed as a result of a prolonged mourning reaction, but in many depression is enhanced because they feel unwell as a result of their systemic disorder and its troublesome somatic aspects..."

Idiopathic Parkinsonism

"...This unconscious habit of air swallowing is so common among the general population that it is difficult to regard it as other than a temporary exaggeration of the normal fight or flight response of deep breathing, and it rarely leads to medical consultation. The habit is apparent to doctors during medical interviews, or on examination when the patient's thyroid cartilage is seen to be bobbing up and down. Such patients may belch when something stressful is said or conveyed which they find it difficult to accept. It is then as revealing as an asthmatic's cough or wheeze, or of other people's sneezes or belly rumbles. Yet uncomplaining aerophagists unconsciously swallow air during much of their working or social day..."

Guillain-Barré Syndrome

"...Excess gas in the stomach may lead patients to eructate persistently if they are able to relax the cardiac sphincter. Others who cannot belch or those who control the urge are now known to pass the air through their small intestines into the colon producing the classical splenic flexure syndrome..."

Myasthenia Gravis

"...She was referred again aged 31 because, despite these interventions, hyperventilation attacks had worsened, and because for 7 years she had suffered aerophagy and belching whenever she went out or met new people. It had become so severe that her social life had virtually ceased..."