A migraine has many faces, ranging from ugly to unfriendly. For some people, it is only an annoyance, but for many affected patients it is a disease that places an almost unbearable burden on their life.

Approximately 16 percent of all women and six percent of all men suffer from migraine. The disease can break out at any age. However, it usually appears between puberty and the age of forty. It manifests itself in violent, usually one-sided headaches. The most common type of migraine is characterized by gradually increasing headaches frequently accompanied by nausea, vomiting, as well as noise and light sensitivity.

In some affected patients, the episodes of pain are foreshadowed by a tingling sensation in the arms and legs as well as through momentary speech and vision disorders. This phenomenon is labeled "aura".

The illness is caused by nerve cells that are located in a certain region of the brain which is called the brain stem. These nerve cells continually increase their electrical excitability. In the end, a threshold is reached, triggering another migraine attack. One could compare this to an overflowing barrel of water. The overflowing then leads to headaches, nausea and other accompanying symptoms.