Table 1.
Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of 67 patients with chronic headaches.
| H3-L6 diet n = 33 |
L6 diet n = 34 |
|
|---|---|---|
| Age, years: Mean (SD) | 41 (13.4) | 42 (11.1) |
| Female, n (%) | 28 (84.8) | 30 (88.2) |
| White race, n (%) | 28 (84.8) | 30 (88.1) |
| Married, n (%) | 19 (57.6) | 19 (55.9) |
| Education, n (%) | ||
| High school | 2 (6.1) | 2 (6.2) |
| Attended college | 18 (54.5) | 17 (53.1) |
| Master’s degree or higher | 13 (40.6) | 13 (39.4) |
| Employment, n (%) | ||
| Employed/student | 26 (78.8) | 23 (69.7) |
| Retired/caretaker | 3 (9.1) | 3 (9.1) |
| Disabled/unemployed | 4 (12.1) | 7 (20.0) |
| Headache categorya, n (%) | ||
| Chronic migraine | 26 (78.8) | 24 (70.6) |
| CDH with migraine features | 6 (18.2) | 6 (17.6) |
| CDH without migraine features | 1 (3.0) | 4 (11.8) |
| Headaches managed by neurologist, n (%) | 24 (72.7) | 24 (70.6) |
| Age at first headache, median (IQR) | 15 (10) | 18 (18) |
| Patients reporting 2 or more headache-related medications, n (%) | ||
| Acute medicationsb | 31 (93.9) | 29 (85.3) |
| Preventive medicationsb | 13 (39.4) | 13 (38.2) |
| Adjunctive medicationsb | 8 (24.2) | 12 (35.3) |
| Total number of different headache-related medications reported, mean (SD) | 6.4 (3.4) | 5.6 (3.3) |
| MIDAS (Headache-related disability), Median (95% CI)c | 43 (28, 59) | 34 (24, 47) |
| Credibility Scale (Borkovec & Nau) (range 0–45), mean (SD) | 28.3 (5.5) | 27.1 (3.8) |
CDH, chronic daily headache; IQR, interquartile range; MIDAS, migraine disability assessment; CI, confidence interval.
Subjects classified as chronic migraine met International Headache Disorders-2 criteria. Subjects classified as CDH with migraine features had some characteristics of migraine (eg, unilateral, pulsating, severe, sensory sensitivity, or aggravated by physical activity) but did not meet all criteria needed for chronic migraine diagnosis. Subjects classified with CDH without migraine features had no evidence of migraine.
Headache medication categories are shown in Supplementary Table 2.
95% confidence interval around the median per binomial-based method in Stata 12.