A new study presented at the American Academy of Neurology establishes links between kinds of migraine and stroke.
“When I start getting the headache I have to close my eyes.”
Karen Reiter is a typical migraine patient. “It feels like someone is squeezing your head so tight. And there’s no relief.”

Luckily, she does not have the preceding symptoms known as aura, where the person experiences flashing lights, or unusual smells or sounds. But for those that do--roughly 20% of migraine patients--a new study presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in San Francisco warns of an increased risk of stroke.
The study found after 9 years of follow-up, women who had migraine with aura had a 50% increased chance for all types of stroke and a 70% increased risk for ischemic stroke, when there’s decreased blood flow. That risk was highest among women under the age of 55.
Previous studies have failed to find a clear link between migraines and stroke.
This study is raising eyebrows. 40,000 women were followed, which is a lot for medical research. Dr. Robert Duarte, a neurologist a Long Island Jewish Medical Center, says, “The numbers are so that that is something that I may now caution patients. Patients who have migraine with aura should get a workup which might require looking at the blood vessels, looking at the heart, looking at the carotids, doing more of a stroke workup.”
There was no increased risk for women who had migraine without aura, or non-migraine headache. Why the aura is so important is unclear, but somehow it’s linked to blockage of blood flow to the brain. “It’s thought that there’s a nerve instability that then causes a vascular problem,” reports Duarte.
One additional question that arises is whether doctors should we more aggressively pursue the elimination of migraines and their preceding auras with preventative approaches, such as medications and Botox. Duarte says, this might be the next step. “We don’t want to scare the population of patients with migraines about strokes. We have the results of one study. Further studies will give us a clearer idea of how migraines and strokes are related.”
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