Research Yields Insights About HIV-Related Headaches

A University of Mississippi study of headaches among HIV patients is being hailed as a critical step to improving treatment and reducing unnecessary medical costs among sufferers.

The paper, "Headache among Patients with HIV Disease: Prevalence, Characteristics, and Associations," is being published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Headache and is already available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.2011.02025.x/abstract

The results of the study show that headache affects one of every two HIV/AIDS patients, but these are not typical tension headaches. Approximately 27.5 percent of the patients studied met criteria for "chronic migraine," a rare headache condition in which a person has migraine symptoms — with or without other headaches – for 15 or more days per month. In comparison, only 2 percent of the general population is classified as having chronic migraines.

Source: Newswise