TITLE:
Clinical Characteristics of Headache in Egyptian Patients with Idiopathic Epilepsy
AUTHORS:
Mohamed A. Sayed, Hazem K. Ibrahim, Alaaeldin Sedky Bekhit, Mohamed N. Thabit, Mostafa Abdelmomen
KEYWORDS:
Epilepsy, Headache, Migraine, Preictal Headache, Interictal Headache, Postictal Headache
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science,
Vol.9 No.3,
March
25,
2019
ABSTRACT: Purpose: Headache and epilepsy are common neurological disorders and their relationship is still incompletely known. The purpose of our work was to estimate the most common types of primary headache syndromes and its relation to seizure timing in epileptic patients in Upper Egypt. Patients & Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we evaluated headaches in 100 consecutive patients with idiopathic epilepsy attending the neurology outpatient clinic and the epilepsy clinic at Sohag university hospital by complete medical history, physical and neurologic examination EEG and CT brain. Results: Of our study population, 78% of patients with epilepsy reported headaches. Migraine occurred in 70.6% of patients with headache followed by tension-type headache in 25.58% of patients and other types of headaches occurred in 2.56% of patients. There were 8 patients (10.1%) had a pre-ictal headache, 52 patients (66.5%) had a postictal headache and 39 patients (50%) had an interictal headache. In our study, we found that the occurrence of headache being linked to the female sex, lower mean age, lower mean age at the onset of epilepsy, focal epilepsy, longer duration of epilepsy, high frequency of seizures and the use of polytherapy of antiepileptics. Conclusion: Headache especially migraine is an important comorbidity of epilepsy and should receive more attention especially in female patients, patients with younger age, lower mean age at epilepsy onset, longer duration of the disease, patients on polytherapy, patients with higher frequency of seizures and patients with focal epilepsy.