VERTIGO AND MIGRAINE

Vertigo consists of a variety of syndromes and can be due to many etio logies. One of these causes is migraine, which in our experience is of ten overlooked, although migrainous vertigo is well known in the liter ature. Vertigo in migraine can occur as aura or during the headache ph ase, or independent of the attacks as aura without headache. The aim o f this retrospective study was to analyze cases with vertigo and migra ine: 23 (8%) of 298 patients with migraine examined in a neurological outpatient department also had rotational vertigo. 48% of these patien ts had vertigo independent from typical migraine headache. Two types o f vertigo were found: permanent vertigo, and vertigo with the characte ristics of paroxysmal positional vertigo. 57% of the vertiginous attac ks lasted hours, 26% even days, and 17% minutes. Most of the patients had several attacks of vertigo, some involving up to 30 episodes. To r ecognize migraine as a cause of vertigo has therapeutic implications. Most of our patients with vertigo and migraine showed a good response to antimigraine therapy.