The shocking truth about migraines
Three million Australians suffer migraines, the third most debilitating medical condition in the world, according to the World Health Organisation.
Some say that migraine sufferers should harden up, take a pill, and just get on with it.
But the fact is “you can’t pop a pill and get over it,” says Gerald Edmunds, Secretary General of Headache Australia and the Brain Foundation.
“The prevailing attitude that people should simply ‘pop a pill’ only adds to the complexity of this issue; medication overuse is rife,” he tells news.com.au.
What non-sufferers need to realise is that migraines are far more than a “big headache”.
A migraine is a crippling neurological condition which can cause paralysis, pain, vomiting, speech and vision problems during an attack. It’s highly disabling, and can last for days.
And at the moment there’s no cure as neurologists don’t know yet what causes migraines.
“There is a stigma associated with migraine, and a lack of understanding in the community about how far reaching it’s impact is,” Edmunds, who does not suffer migraines, says.
“An attack causes significant disruptions. Sufferers can’t attend events. They miss work. People trivialise it as a headache they don’t realise how difficult it is for those in the grip of an episode to do anything else. It’s a disability in that it prevents you from doing normal things for a time.”
Edmunds wants headache sufferers to register with Headache Australia’s national headache register.
“We have 10,000 people, but if we can get to one million we can exert political pressure for more research and new treatments,” he says.