Migraine

MIAMI - Heat guard Dwyane Wade sat out yesterday's practice due to a migraine. He is listed as a game-time decision when the Heat and the 76ers play Game 2 tonight in Miami at 7 o'clock. Wade has had a history of migraines. He missed a Jan. 22 game against Toronto due to one, and missed another game a couple of years ago against the Los Angeles Clippers for the same reason. - Bob Cooney

MIAMI - The Miami Heat expect Dwyane Wade to play Monday night in Game 2 of their playoff series against the 76ers, but no one could say for sure Sunday after the seven-time all-star missed practice because of a migraine headache. According to a Heat official, Wade came to the practice facility at AmericanAirlines Arena, saw team doctors, got medication, and went home before practice. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said it was too early to determine Wade's availability; he said he would have a better idea during the team's shootaround on Monday morning.

DEAR ABBY: I'd like to respond to "Hurting in Virginia Beach, Va.," who complained that the smell of mint chewing gum triggers her migraines. I chew gum on planes because it helps reduce sinus pressure, thus preventing my own headaches. I am also a former smoker, and gum-chewing is a healthier alternative to tobacco. If "Hurting" explained her situation, I would certainly abide by her request to not chew, although I would find it uncomfortable to go without for long. I recommend she carry several packs of non-mint gum in her purse.

MIAMI - The cool wind that blew off the Biscayne Bay yesterday morning could have been a sign that another thunderstorm was blowing in toward Miami Beach. Most likely, though, it came from the huge collective sigh of relief when guard Dwyane Wade showed up for the Miami Heat's morning shootaround. Wade missed Sunday's practice with a migraine. He missed a game earlier this season for the same reason and has battled the ailment for much of his career. If there was any doubt about Wade's availability before the game, he squashed that when he did some shooting before last night's 97-73 Miami victory without the goggles that protect his eyes from glare.

A migraine very nearly cost the Denver Broncos the Super Bowl four months ago. Knocked their star running back, Terrell Davis, out of commission in the first half of their 31-24 win over the Green Bay Packers. "It happened late in the first quarter," Davis said. "We were going toward their goal line. I took a pitchout, tripped and [Packers strong safety] LeRoy Butler kneed me in the head. I went back to the sideline for a few plays, then went back in for one play before the quarter ended.

I am not breathing. I am lying on a procedure table in my doctor's office, passed out, but can still hear what is going on around me. I am lying there, passed out and not breathing, because of the pain. Migraine. This one was triggered by the requirements that I neither eat nor drink before a routine, midafternoon medical test. The predictable headache came early and burst sometime before the procedure, growing until the intensity finally shut my body down. For a few seconds, I feel finally free of the terrible ordeal of breathing.

When you're a small public company, you usually don't want to be one of the day's most actively traded stocks. Invariably, it means bad news has unnerved investors. So it was Tuesday with NuPathe Inc. , a 61/2-year-old Conshohocken drug-development firm, when it disclosed that federal regulators had questions that will delay the launch of its first product. NuPathe said the Food and Drug Administration issued a complete-response letter in connection with its review of the migraine treatment Zelrix.

There's a vein in Dave Hisler's right temple. Around Malvern Prep, and especially to members of the track team, it's known as "the vein. " Hisler, the Inter-Ac League's top sprinter, has asthma. When he runs, he gets pounding, vein-popping, asthma-induced migraine headaches. The harder he runs, the more his head hurts. "I'll be fine during a race and for a minute or two afterwards," Hisler said. "Then, all of a sudden, my head starts pounding. It kills me. The vein (in his temple)

DRUGS AND PREGNANCY. Smoking marijuana during pregnancy stunts fetal growth, leading to smaller infants with lower birth weights, and cocaine use during pregnancy contributes to a three-fold increase in microcephaly - small head size. "Smaller babies in general have more health and developmental problems, and cocaine and marijuana use during pregnancy are each associated with poor fetal growth," says Barry Zuckerman of Boston University School of Medicine, the lead author of a new study reporting those findings in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A dozen years ago, a patient told plastic surgeon Bahman Guyuron that her forehead lift made her feel fabulous. Sure, she looked better. But the wrinkle-smoothing operation also endedher migraine headaches, something that decades of drugs and lifestyle changes had failed to do. After a similar case of serendipity, Guyuron became intrigued by the possibility that he had stumbled on a new way to help some of the 36 million hapless Americans who...

DEAR ABBY: I'd like to respond to "Hurting in Virginia Beach, Va.," who complained that the smell of mint chewing gum triggers her migraines. I chew gum on planes because it helps reduce sinus pressure, thus preventing my own headaches. I am also a former smoker, and gum-chewing is a healthier alternative to tobacco. If "Hurting" explained her situation, I would certainly abide by her request to not chew, although I would find it uncomfortable to go without for long. I recommend she carry several packs of non-mint gum in her purse.

Items on Jeff Wojciechowski's to-do list before a 2010 family vacation to Cancun included renewing his passport, shopping for beach wear, and getting a Botox injection. The procedure wasn't to smooth out wrinkles. Instead, the injection went into his bladder muscle, to give the 63-year-old Fort Washington man a respite from incontinence that has plagued him since a 2006 construction accident left him paralyzed from mid-chest down. Though Botox has become synonymous with the temporary elimination of wrinkles, what's less well known is its application across medicine.

It goes without saying that the founders of NuPathe Inc. have a vested interest in seeing U.S. regulators one day approve the company's first product. But since chief executive officer Jane H. Hollingsworth and president Terri B. Sebree both suffer from migraines, they not only know their target market - they are their target market. Last week, the Conshohocken specialty-pharmaceutical company announced a new timetable for introducing its treatment for acute migraine, which they'd originally hoped would be on the market during the first half of 2012.

When you're a small public company, you usually don't want to be one of the day's most actively traded stocks. Invariably, it means bad news has unnerved investors. So it was Tuesday with NuPathe Inc. , a 61/2-year-old Conshohocken drug-development firm, when it disclosed that federal regulators had questions that will delay the launch of its first product. NuPathe said the Food and Drug Administration issued a complete-response letter in connection with its review of the migraine treatment Zelrix.

Lisa Scottoline will return next week. Italian women are stereotypically overreactors. My mother, for example, makes nuclear reactors seem reasonable. But I pride myself on being the coolheaded one. I can win any argument, or at least whip my mom into a frenzy, simply by remaining calm. So I always imagined I'd perform well in an emergency. I finally got my test case in last week's earthquake. I was writing on my laptop, when all of a sudden I felt as if the floor was swinging.

NuPathe Inc., a Conshohocken pharmaceutical company, said today that Aspire Capital Fund L.L.C. agreed to buy up to $30 million worth of NuPathe common stock over the next two years. Aspire, a Chicago investment company, started with a purchase of 70,000 shares for $500,000. The price was $7.07 a share, 19 percent more than the stock's closing price of $5.95 on Tuesday. In early afternoon trading today, the shares were down $1.34 at $4.61. NuPathe is developing medicines for diseases of the central nervous system.

MIAMI - The pain for Dwyane Wade was excruciating, sort of the way the 76ers felt after Monday's 94-73 loss to the Miami Heat at AmericanAirlines Arena. Wade's malady was a migraine, the Sixers' was poor shooting. The Sixers are down two games to none in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference first-round series, and they still haven't seen Wade at his all-star best. Wade missed Sunday's practice with the migraine but rested enough to return to the court. On this night, with the 76ers missing one open shot after another during a 27-for-79 shooting exhibition, and LeBron James rediscovering his offensive jumper, Wade didn't need to be a dominant figure.

MIAMI - The cool wind that blew off the Biscayne Bay yesterday morning could have been a sign that another thunderstorm was blowing in toward Miami Beach. Most likely, though, it came from the huge collective sigh of relief when guard Dwyane Wade showed up for the Miami Heat's morning shootaround. Wade missed Sunday's practice with a migraine. He missed a game earlier this season for the same reason and has battled the ailment for much of his career. If there was any doubt about Wade's availability before the game, he squashed that when he did some shooting before last night's 97-73 Miami victory without the goggles that protect his eyes from glare.

MIAMI - Heat guard Dwyane Wade sat out yesterday's practice due to a migraine. He is listed as a game-time decision when the Heat and the 76ers play Game 2 tonight in Miami at 7 o'clock. Wade has had a history of migraines. He missed a Jan. 22 game against Toronto due to one, and missed another game a couple of years ago against the Los Angeles Clippers for the same reason. - Bob Cooney