Suffering from headaches or migraines? Childhood trauma could be causing them
If you suffer from headaches, new research suggests your childhood may be partially to blame.
A report published last week in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that people who experienced one or more traumatic events during childhood were 48% more likely to develop headache disorders as an adult.
The body holds trauma that can manifest into physical symptoms, the study found. The authors say it's important for providers to keep childhood trauma in mind as they treat headache disorders. Experts suspect headaches may become more prevalent in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as reports of substance abuse, chronic disease and other trauma events increased.
“These findings cannot be ignored,” said Catherine Kreatsoulas, a senior author on the study, who teaches at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “How this will play out in the future is yet to be seen. But we definitely have an issue in front of us.”
Suffer from headaches? Over half of the world does and women report the most, study says
Headaches and childhood trauma
The large study included over 154,000 participants from the U.S. and 18 other countries.
In their analysis, Harvard researchers discovered that as the number of traumatic events in a person's life increased, so did the odds of having headaches. People who reported one traumatic event had a 24% increased risk of a headache disorder, while people who had four or more were more than twice as likely to experience chronic headaches.
The study grouped the traumas into different categories. Physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, witnessing or using threats of violence, or serious family conflicts were categorized as threat traumas.
Experiences such as neglect, economic adversity, having an incarcerated household member, divorce or separation, parental death, and living in a household with a person who has a mental illness, chronic disability or disease, or alcohol or substance abuse were categorized as deprivation traumas.
Researchers found the first category, threat traumas, were associated with a 46% increase in headaches while deprivation traumas corresponded with a 35% increase.
“We saw these played a very distinct role in headaches in adulthood,” Kreatsoulas, the senior author of the study, said. “These pathways are really important and we really need to pay attention to what’s happening in childhood and adolescence.”
Trauma and the brain
Experts say threat and deprivation trauma may affect the brain in different ways.
Threat-related trauma may impact the formation of the hippocampus, the amygdala and other parts of the brain that are involved in emotional processing, said Dr. Mia Minen, director of headache research at NYU Langone Health.
Deprivation impacts the brain’s development, she said. When children are neglected, they’re not likely to get the proper attention that stimulates connections in the brain. The changes in connections may be linked with headaches in adulthood.
Stress-induced hormones, like cortisol, triggered by trauma-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder may also contribute to migraines, Minen said.
Early intervention
Headache and migraine disorders can be debilitating and getting rid of them is not as easy as popping over-the-counter pain medication.
“Migraine is extremely disabling,” Minen said. “And unfortunately, (migraines) really affect people during their most productive years of life.”
They can have a harsher impact on children, who often miss school, extracurricular and social activities, said Dr. Megan Purser, pediatric psychologist at the Texas Children’s Hospital headache clinic.
She’s already seen an increase in young patients with headaches at her clinic following the COVID-19 pandemic, which fueled certain deprivation traumas noted in the new study such as social isolation, chronic disease, substance abuse, parental death, and financial issues, among others.
Children who suffer from headaches tend to grow into adults who suffer from them, so it’s important to screen for trauma and intervene early before it impacts school, higher education, work or social life in the future.
Pediatricians should set the groundwork for children who experience chronic headaches. Purser said, so they'll have the skills and tools they need to be healthier as adults.
Send tips to Adrianna Rodriguez at adrodriguez@usatoday.com
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Headaches and migraines: Childhood trauma could be causing them
