Seven Things You Don't Know About Migraines

I have suffered from chronic migraine attacks since I was ten years old. I’ve tried medication after medication, and every time it seems that one is working, it suddenly stops or has a weaker effect. The only thing to come close to consistently working has been Imitrex, the medicine I take to try and stop a migraine attack once it’s started. Prevention is touch-and-go at best, and I am just fortunate that my writing/editing/beta reading clients are usually understanding and flexible. After all, I never know when an attack might come on, even if I identify and eliminate my triggers (which seems almost impossible anyway since so much triggers them). Now, my doctor has started me on one of those biologics that you see on TV. Once again, it’s a game of wait-and-see.

This ongoing struggle has made me realize just how little people know about migraines unless they suffer from them or know someone who does. Even the biologics commercials barely scratch the surface. From all the misconceptions out there, I have chosen seven major facts to present:

1. Migraines are NOT just “really bad headaches.” I cannot emphasize this one enough. People often think that migraines are synonymous with “really bad headaches,” but it goes far beyond that. Migraine is a genetic nervous system disease. Headaches are just one on a long list of possible symptoms. These symptoms can include headaches, nausea, vomiting, vertigo, dizziness, sensitivity to light/sound/smell, visual and auditory hallucinations, auras, extreme tiredness, irritability/moodiness, etc. Different people have different symptoms. Even for one person, the symptoms can vary from one attack to the next. Some people don’t even get the headache component, like a friend of mine from grad school (she gets nausea, vomiting, and hallucinations). I get the headache (my most prominent symptom), auras, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to smell/sound/light, and sometimes dizziness and/or vertigo. I didn’t even realize that normal headaches don’t come with nausea, vomiting, and auras until some point after grad school.

2. We don’t know exactly what causes migraines. We do know, according to the American Migraine Foundation, that “migraine is an inherited neurological disorder that is characterized by overexcitability of specific areas of the brain.” Exactly what causes a migraine brain to behave the way it does and what happens in our brains to start a migraine are still a mystery. We also know that people with migraine are more sensitive to certain transient factors, also known as triggers, such as hormonal imbalances, stress, lack of sleep, alcohol, environmental stimuli, and even certain foods. Some migraineurs claim to have migraines triggered by weather changes. Everyone’s triggers can be different, and sometimes, migraines have no clear trigger at all. That’s one of the reasons why it can be so hard to prevent and treat migraines.

3. Migraines are found more often in women than men, but men can have them, too. Thanks once again to the American Migraine Foundation, we know that one in sixteen men have migraines, whereas one in five women have them. Migraine typically starts when a woman gets her first period—although it can happen at any age—and happens more frequently during the childbearing years. Not to mention that one in every eleven children suffer from migraine. Like I said, I’ve had them since I was ten. Changes in a woman’s hormones can trigger migraines as well. Furthermore, women have longer, more frequent, and more debilitating migraine attacks. Considering I’ve had two-day-long migraine attacks before (in addition to having at least fifteen attacks a month), I can personally vouch for this.

4. There is a spectrum of migraine disorders, including episodic and chronic. Simply put, episodic migraine means that the person has zero to fourteen headache days per month, whereas chronic migraine affects people who have fifteen or more headache days per month. I fall under the latter category. Both are debilitating conditions, but according to a study from the National Library of Medicine, chronic migraineurs have a higher amount of individual and societal burden. In other words, the more migraine attacks you have, the more your life is affected.

5. Migraine is classified as a disability. In fact, migraine is the world’s third leading cause of years lived with disability, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study in 2019. You can apply for disability in the United States if you have migraines, but it’s very difficult. Fortunately, places such as the American Migraine Foundation have resources to help the process go more smoothly.

6. Many famous figures, both past and present, have suffered from migraines. We already know, thanks to commercials for migraine medications, that modern-day celebrities such as Khloe Kardashian and Whoopi Goldberg suffer from migraines. However, did you know that Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, was a migraineur? There’s even a theory that some of his imagery in Wonderland was inspired by his experience with auras. Virginia Woolf and Miguel de Cervantes also suffered from migraines.

7. June is Migraine and Headache Awareness Month. Ironically, June is my birth month, Pride Month, and Migraine and Headache Awareness Month. Quite the triple threat. The American Migraine Foundation has many ways in which you can advocate for migraines during that time.

Long story short: migraines suck. I can’t even begin to describe one. For me, it’s just a blur of head pain, auras, and, if I’m unlucky enough, nausea/vomiting, vertigo and/or dizziness, and maybe even sensitivity to light/sound/smell. I can’t even sit up if they get bad enough, let alone work or write. We may not know a lot about migraine, but we sure know more than we did even a few years ago. Hopefully, there’s a light on the horizon for those of us suffering from migraine attacks. In the meantime, those who don’t get migraines, please try to be understanding. Even if someone doesn’t look like they have migraine attacks, don’t judge a book by its cover; there might be a story of torture, desperation, and horror within their pages.

For more information, please check out The American Migraine Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, and the Global Disease Burden Study in 2019. If you would like to read more on my take on migraines and writers with disabilities/chronic diseases, please check out my Vocal piece on writing a Moby-Dick essay with a migraine and my post on The Writer’s Scrap Bin about being a writer with chronic migraine.