Osmophobia in migraine and tension-type headache and its clinical features in patients with migraine
One article on PainSci cites Zanchin 2007: The Complete Guide to Chronic Tension Headaches
PainSci notes on Zanchin 2007:
This study reports that osmophobia is exclusively a migraine symptom, occurring in about 40% of migraine patients, but not at all with tension headaches. In 772 patients, the “most frequently offending odours were scents (63.9%), food (55.2%) and cigarette smoke (54.8%).”
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
Intolerance to smell is often reported by migraine patients. This study evaluates osmophobia in connection with the diagnosis of migraine and episodic tension-type headache (ETTH). The characteristics of this symptom are also investigated. We recruited from our Headache Centre 1005 patients (772 female, 233 male; age 37 +/- 11 years), of whom 677 were migraine without aura (MoA), 130 migraine with aura (MA) and 198 TTH. Patients with two or more forms of primary headache were excluded. Among migraine patients, 43.9% with MoA and 38.5% with MA reported osmophobia during the attacks; none of the 198 TTH patients suffered this symptom. Most frequently offending odours were scents (63.9%), food (55.2%) and cigarette smoke (54.8%). Osmophobia appears structurally integrated into the migraine history of the patient. It seems to be a peculiar symptom favouring the diagnosis of migraine (MoA and MA) in the differential diagnosis with ETTH.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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