'CHOCOLATES, RED WINE, CAN TRIGGER MIGRAINE HEADACHE'

Migraine headache is one of the three major kinds of headaches. Unlike the other two, Cluster and Tension Type of headaches, it is episodic and comes with it, nausea and aura. Physicians gave this explanation.

Migraine headache is a health condition that is hereditary. According to Medical Director, Rowil Totalcare Medical Centre, Satellite Town, Lagos, and Dr. Donald Nkasiobi Anyaogu it is a condition that can be compounded by the use of oral contraceptives. And, it can affect sexual pleasure.

Anyaogu explains what the condition is and the factors that can trigger it. 'I know there are various kinds of headaches. There are three major classes of headaches. We have the tension type headaches, the migrainous headaches, then, the cluster headaches. There could be some other factors that could bring about pressure within the head that would give you headache. But, the major ones are the migraine headache, the tension type headache and the cluster type of headache.

'There are factors that make it migrainous. If you have a headache that comes continuously, that is there, day and night; that is unlikely to be migrainous. Migrainous headache should be intermittent. It's episodic. It comes from time to time. And apart from that headache, there is always an isolated tendency to feel like vomiting, which is called nausea. So, nausea or vomiting will be present.

'Then, we have another factor which is called an aura. It could be a visual aura where you see things like flashes of light in a zigzag form. That should be one of the things that should tell you that it is likely to be migrainous. Some other headaches wouldn't come with an aura. Like the tension headache wouldn't come with an aura. The cluster headache wouldn't also come with an aura. That's what distinguishes one from the other. The presence pf aura, vomiting and nausea.

Explaining further, Anyaogu spoke on how the condition can hamper sex. 'in some way, it can affect sexual intercourse because it's a severe, proven and abysmal headache that just come acutely and you can have it as a chronic situation. Classically, there are two types of migraine. We have classical migraine and common migraine. Common migraine will have these other two factors -the severity and episodic aspects will come intermittently. And then, you can also have the nausea and vomiting. But the aura is not there. That's in the common migraine. In classical, we have the three factors there.

'So, you can imagine at the point you want to have orgasm and that terrible headache comes, obviously, it would affect you. So, obviously, it would affect sexual intercourse. In fact, some women are known to have it at a particular point of their menstrual cycle. When it gets to about that time, that's when this migrainous headache comes on. So, to some extent, it can affect sex and full enjoyment of it. Because if you have it at the point when you're about getting on with sex, you sort of loose concentration because that trouble headache is there and you will not give your best at that particular time.