Many people attribute their headaches to weather changes. And a new study confirm this belief.
In a study of 25 children and adolescents with migraine or chronic tension headaches, the authors found that symptoms tended to worsen on rainy days or when the humidity was above the normal mark.
Participants tended to be almost three times more likely to have headache when it rained or increased humidity, compared with drier climate, report in the journal Headache.
Often, people with migraine or other headaches are often debilitating to mention the weather changes within the triggers. But there is no solid evidence.
The authors present the participants with handheld computers to record headache symptoms in “real time” for two weeks. They then compared these data with climate, the team met with specialist software.
For the team of Dr. Mark Connelly, the Children’s Hospital and Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, the results are a step forward from previous studies.
The study found that during the rainy season, children had a 59 percent chance of having symptoms of headache, compared with 21 percent of days without rain.
Humid days, this possibility was up 58 percent versus 22 percent of the days with average humidity.
“The results somewhat support the belief that the time changes would favor the emergence of recurrent headaches in children,” the team said.
It is not known exactly why the rain and humidity would cause this effect. The study also underestimated for other climate variables.
A recent study of 7,000 patients with severe migraine or not migraine headaches found that the risk of having symptoms grew hotter days and less barometric pressure, which occurs when the sky is overcast and there are storms.
But in the study, there was a specific relationship between the symptoms of headache and barometric changes.
According to the authors, further studies are needed to understand how weather changes affect the symptoms of headache in the population and how that information might help patients.