Migraine linked with glaucoma

Patients with migraine and glaucoma are found to have an excessive drop in diastolic blood pressure during the night.

Nocturnal hypotension has long been postulated as related to damage to the retinal nerve fibre bundles. A poster presented at last week's American Academy for Ophthalmology conference in Chicago showed how the only statistically significant parameter difference between a group with migraine and glaucoma and one with migraine alone was reduced night-time blood pressure.

Dr Yuri Astakhov (Pavlov Medical University) and colleagues found that more than 20 per cent of patients with glaucoma and migraine were 'overdippers' or had an excessive decrease of night diastolic blood pressure.