There are some very interesting studies being published about the link between migraine headaches and increasing likelihood of suicide:
From a pool of 4,765 persons randomly screened in the community (Detroit, Michigan area), the researchers arrived at a final sample of 1,186 respondents with full assessments via face-to-face interviews: 1) migraine (N = 496), 2) non-migraine severe headaches (N = 151), and 3) controls (N = 539). All participants were interviewed at baseline in 1997 and reassessed 2 years later, in 1999. On average, the age of the study population was 40 years, 79% were female, and 74% were white. Overall, 5.6% had at least one suicide attempt prior to the start of the observation period: 9.1% migraine, 5.3% severe headache, and 2.6% controls (however, the difference between migraine and severe headache groups was not statistically significant).
During the 2-year followup period, persons with migraine or severe headache were at least 4 times more likely to attempt suicide than controls. The odds ratio in migraineurs — adjusted for sex, psychiatric disorder, and previous history of suicide attempt at baseline — was 4.43 (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.93, 10.2). Persons with non-migraine headache of comparable intensity and disability also had a greatly increased likelihood of suicide attempt as compared with controls: odds ratio, adjusted for the same covariates, was 6.20 (95% CI 2.40, 16.0). [Due to the wide, overlapping CIs the difference between the 2 odds ratio estimates was not statistically significant.]
The likelihood of suicide attempt was not influenced by alcohol- or drug-use disorder, or by migraine with or without aura. However, the average pain intensity score of persons who attempted suicide during the follow-up period was significantly higher than in persons who did not attempt suicide: mean 7.58 (Standard Deviation [SD] = 2.75) on a 0-to-10 scale compared with 5.18 (SD = 3.70), respectively. Essentially, the risk of suicide attempt increased by 17% with each 1 point rise on the pain-intensity scale; or, in other terms, an increase in pain score of 1 SD unit raised the odds of suicide-attempt by 79% (OR = 1.79).
Oddly enough, the US Government has declared that the deaths related to the abuse of OxyContin and other painkiller additions are at “epidemic” levels, but have not recognized suicide rates as being in the same range of severity. There were twice as many suicides in the US last year than their were reported cases of painkiller-related deaths.
More details can be found at the very impressive resource, Pain-Topic.org.