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By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP, clinical managing editor

I used to think I was lucky. Most of the women in my family have migraines—awful, vomiting for three days, intense pain migraines. Not me. Oh, I have migraines. But no pain, no vomiting, just a visual aura—squiggly lines and loss of part of my visual field for about 45 minutes and then I’m good to go.

I was thankful that I just had the aura instead of the pain and vomiting. But now the evidence shows that migraine with aura, especially when there is no vomiting involved, is an independent risk factor for stroke, as much as if I were overweight, smoking cigarettes, and walking around with my blood pressure through the roof.

And it’s not just having migraines that places me at greater risk for a stroke. […]