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Is temperature a trigger for headaches and migraine?

13 March 2009

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We must recognise that most people with headache do not attend casualty or even call a doctor but simply self-medicate and rest. Dr Andrew Dowson, Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board, Migraine Action

A new study, published in the journal Neurology, claims that a rise in temperature can increase your risk of getting a headache or migraine severe enough to need a visit to hospital. However, the effect isn't large enough to be noticeable in most people.

The study, carried out by researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, USA, looked at over 7,000 people diagnosed with headache or migraine in their emergency department over a period of seven years. As the study only looked at people who went to hospital, the findings can't be applied to the many people who have headache or migraine and don't go to hospital.

The scientists compared the temperature, barometric pressure, humidity and levels of air pollutants in the days leading up to the hospital visit with corresponding values on other days of the same month. From this, they calculated how changes in the weather conditions and air pollutants affected the risk of getting a headache or migraine.

The researchers found that the risk of getting a headache or migraine increased by 7.5 percent for every 5°C increase in temperature. However, this has little effect if you don't usually get many headaches or migraines.

Lead researcher Dr Kenneth Mukamal explained his findings to the Bupa health information team. "If I have three to four severe headaches a year, my risk is about 1 percent on any given day," he said. "My risk would then rise to 1.075 percent if the temperature were 5°C warmer than similar days in that month."

The actual increase in your risk would therefore be very small, although it would be greater if you suffered from more headaches or migraines a year.

The study also found that low air pressure, indicating stormy weather, increased the risk of headaches not caused by migraine to an even lesser degree, and did not seem to affect risk of migraine. Air pollution didn't have an effect on either headaches or migraine.

Dr Andrew Dowson, Chairman of Migraine Action's Medical Advisory Board highlighted the limitations of the study.

"The study is of high quality methodologically and recognizes three main problems; that the doctors did not diagnose as per the International Headache Society guidelines, the temperature was not that personally experienced by the patient but rather a central reading for the geographical area, and the timing of the onset of headache was not accurate (the time of hospital contact was recorded)."

He adds: "In addition of course we must recognise that most people with headache do not attend casualty or even call a doctor but simply self-medicate and rest.

"I'm sure that migraineurs will be interested in these results which will likely confirm personal observations more often than surprise."

Key facts

  • Tension-type headaches are often associated with stress and anxiety. They are also more common if you are inactive and can develop from overuse of certain medicines.
  • Triggers for migraine include: psychological factors such as stress or anxiety, certain food types, change in sleep pattern, bright or flickering lights, extreme heat or cold and hormonal changes in women.
  • Rarer causes of severe headaches include head injury, encephalitis and subarachnoid haemorrhage (bleeding into the brain).