Effect of Chinook Winds on the Probability of Migraine Headache Occurrence

Abstract

Our objective was to determine if Chinook weather conditions in the Calgary area increase the probability of headache attacks in migraine sufferers. Environment Canada meteorologic summaries for January through June 1992 were analyzed and times of Chinook wind onset identified. Chinook weather conditions were defined as calendar days when Chinook winds were present and the calendar day immediately preceding Chinook wind onset. The diaries of 13 migraine patients were analyzed, and times of headache onset classified according to the existing weather conditions. The probability of migraine headache onset was greater on days with Chinook weather (17.26%) than on non-Chinook days (14.65%) (P = 0.042). Older patients appeared more weather sensitive than younger patients. For patients over age 50, the probability of migraine occurrence on Chinook weather days was much greater than on non-Chinook days (P = 0.007). Chinook weather conditions increase the probability of migraine headache occurrence. Older migraine sufferers appear particularly vulnerable to this effect.

Relationship between air mass type and emergency department visits for migraine headache across the Triangle region of North Carolina

“…The study used 75 patient diaries from the University of Calgary Headache Research Clinic. Regression models showed similar results to Piorecky et al (1997), as migraine onset increased on days with chinook winds. The regression models also showed that the probability of migraine onset increased on prechinook days.…”

“…Many of these studies looked at individual weather variables to see if they had an effect on migraine frequency, however, the results were generally inconclusive. Other studies have been able to identify significant relationships between specific weather patterns, such as those associated with Chinook winds, and migraine frequency (Cook et al 1997 andPiorecky et al 1997). Indeed, humans and other elements of the biosphere do not necessarily respond to single weather variables, but instead respond to multiple variables acting synergistically on the environment.…”

“…Piorecky et al (1997) wanted to determine if warm/dry chinook weather conditions in the Calgary area increased the probability of headache attacks in migraine sufferers. Meteorological summaries from…”

“…In light of the results from Cook et al (2000) and Piorecky et al (1997), other weather features, which encompass numerous weather variables, should be examined with respect to migraine frequency. While chinook winds represent a small scale weather feature, synoptic scale weather features with many variables may also impact migraine frequency.…”

Modeling individual migraine severity with autoregressive ordered probit models

“…For studying headache occurrences Piorecky et al (1996) used a generalized estimating approach (GEE) introduced by Zeger and Liang (1986) to adjust for the dependence between multiple measurements. While GEE could also be used for ordinal valued time series (see for example Liang et al (1992), Heagerty and Zeger (1996) and Fahrmeir and Pritscher (1996)), we prefer a likelihood based regression time series approach to investigate the influence of weather conditions on migraine severity.…”