We Need to Stop Calling Migraines “Just a Headache”

I’ve only had what I believe was one migraine in my life, and I still remember thinking: How do people live with this over and over again?

Then I sat down with neurologist and headache specialist Dr. Huma Sheikh and learned something that completely changed the way I think about migraines.

Migraine is the second leading cause of disability in the world. For women under 50, it’s the number one cause of disability.

That’s a very different picture from “I have a bad headache.”

A migraine is a neurological disease. The headache can be severe, but people can also experience nausea, dizziness, brain fog, vision changes, sensitivity to light and sound, and in some cases numbness or weakness.

And then they’re expected to keep going.

Go to work. Take care of the kids. Sit through the meeting. Look at a computer screen. Keep the plans they made before they knew a migraine was coming.

I think that’s part of what we’ve gotten so wrong about migraines.

When someone says they can’t function because of one, we can still hear “headache” and think, Can’t you take something and push through it?

For many people, they already are pushing through it.

Dr. Sheikh told me some of her patients experience migraine symptoms every single day. Others have to cancel work, social plans or family commitments because an attack can make their schedule completely unpredictable.

And women are three to four times more likely to experience migraine than men.

So maybe we need to stop asking people with migraines why they can’t just push through and start understanding what they’re actually pushing through.

My full conversation with Dr. Huma Sheikh about migraine symptoms, triggers, hormones, Botox, treatments and what actually helps is available now on *The Tamsen Show.*

Listen to the full episode here or watch it here.

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