Migreeni

Migreenin perinnöllisyys - ja migreeni-geenin löytyminen - tuskin tuli kenellekään yllätyksenä.

Kiistanalaisempaa on migreeni-herkkyyden ja tietynlaisen persoonallisuus-tyypin yhteys. Migreenistä kärsiviä pidettiin aiemmin usein hysteerisinä, ahdistuneina tai neuroottisina. Kun luin uutisen, mieleeni tulivat nuo vanhat ennakkoluulot ja aloin googletta sanoja "migraine" ja "perosonality".

Naispuolinen migreenipotilas kirjoittaa blogillaan The Daily Migraine varsin tyypillisesti:

there is a bunch of literature out there on so-called “migraine personality”. The term seems to have changed a lot over time.

I was a little surprised to read about the idea that people with migraine were more likely to be controlling and neurotic. They were supposed to be predisposed to sudden emotional outbursts, hysteria, and irrational behavior. No wonder that people with migraines are often offended by the suggestion that their personality traits predisposed them to their headaches… It’s not as if having a “migraine personality” means that you’re intelligent, talented, and kind to small animals and children!

Luckily for us, this has been repeatedly shown to be wrong. Frankly, I can’t help but think that this personality profile was a result of a lot of sexism directed against women. As we know, a large majority of people with migraine are women, and it seems to me that these personality traits are ones that were the result of really bad, sexist prejudices (remember that a “hysterectomy” was supposed to cure a woman’s hysteria?). Of course, I certainly can’t prove that this is the case, but I do suspect it.

Tosiasia kuitenkin on että ns. migreeni-persoonallisuuden olemassaololle on tutkimuksissa löytänyt varsin runsaasti tukea:

The notion of a specific, measurable migraine personality type was empirically tested through the administration of the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) on 125 (103 female and 22 male) migraine subjects drawn from a biofeedback treatment/research project. A significant different (p < 0.01) was identified between this group and the test norms on a simultaneous comparison of all 15 JPI variables (Hotelling T2 test).

This difference was isolated along five variables (lower scores on the measures of Complexity, Risk Taking, and social Participation and higher scores on the Responsibility and Value Orthodoxy scales). A post hoc profile analysis comparison of the female and male subjects revealed only a trend toward significance on one test, thereby supporting the assumption of no sex differences. While these findings are in line with some of the migraine personality literature, support for many characteristics was not found (i.e. for the trait of anxiety).

Migreenin ja persoonallisuustyypin mahdollisessa korrelaatiossa ei tietenkään ole sen enempää ihmeteltävää kuin ihonvärin ja persoonallisuustyypin korrelaatiossa. Monille naisille on tyypillistä vetää tällaisista asioista herneet nenäänsä ja nähdä asiassa seksismiä.

Kärsin itsekin migreenistä enkä ole millään lailla loukkaantunut tai hämmästynyt esimerkiksi väitteistä, että depressio-herkkyys (tai tunnollisuus) ja migreeni-herkkyys korreloivat.