Marian Peiger / EPA file A lightning strikes over Danube river
in the city of Bratislava, Slovakia in July. As a headache
expert at the University of Cincinnati Heath Center, Dr. Vincent
Martin treated a lot of patients who complained that the weather
made their migraines and headaches worse. As he peppered them
with questions about what type of weather affected their
headaches the most, he began noticing a trend. People
experienced more headaches during thunder and lightning storms.
But there existed little scientific proof to back up the
anecdotal evidence. So Martin -- and his son, Geoffrey Martin, a
fourth year medical student at the University of Cincinnati --
decided to do something about it. They asked 90 people with a
history of migraines, from either Cincinnati or St. Louis, to
keep daily journals for three to six months. In the journals,
the patients recorded their symptoms, including the severity of
the pain, any sensitivity to light and noise, and the duration
of the pain. Then the researchers com