Long-lasting cephalic jabs (?) The Vågå study of headache epidemiology.
Jabs (stabs) usually last < or = 3 s and are located in the skull area, mostly anteriorly. In many cases, there are only a few jabs during lifetime. With this definition, jabs are frequent, thus at 35.2% in the Vågå study of headache epidemiology. Long-lasting jabs (?), i.e. paroxysms lasting 10-120 s, were present in six out of 1779 parishioners. These pain paroxysms seemed mainly to be side-locked, but could not be provoked. Possibly, these long-lasting jabs after all mainly are regular jabs. To include the < or = 2-minute-long paroxysms among the jabs will necessitate a rather drastic change of criteria. This group of jabs may, nevertheless, be heterogeneous. In two parishioners, the paroxysms were associated with a migraine-like pain. The paroxysms occasionally became most intense (2-10 times the basal pain), and then, and only then, were they combined with stark, visual phenomena: wave-like movements ('undulation'), anopsia, but also: immense dizziness, nausea/vomiting. The nature of the side-locked basal pain, although migraine-like, remains unsolved.
Sjaastad
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Department of Neurology, St. Olavs. Hospital, Trondheim University Hospitals (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. berit.mjoen@medisin.ntnu.no
Pettersen
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H
Bakketeig
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LS
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway / Q000453:epidemiology; D013997:Time Factors