Many people around the world live with regular migraine attacks – but there are ways to treat them. Migraine can be so debilitating that the ancient Greeks believed the wrath of evil spirits brought it on, and even attempted to treat it through trepanning, the practice of drilling a hole into the skull. Fortunately, we’ve moved on a little in the past 2500 years, but migraine remains one of the most disabling common neurological conditions.
According to the NHS, around 10 million people in the UK live with regular migraine attacks, while the annual impact on the economy from migraine-linked absenteeism from work is placed at around £4.4 billion ($9.36b).
But while migraine is often conflated with an ordinary tension headache, the two are very different. As well as head pain, migraine sufferers can also experience nausea, vomiting and severe fatigue. “Tension headaches are just telling us that something is out of kilter,” says Professor Anne MacGregor, a specialist in headache and women’s health at Queen Mary University of London.
“With a migraine it’s very different. Once it is set off, triggers will build up, and tip over the threshold to a migraine attack. And once that’s started, it has to go through its course.
That process will usually take a few hours to a few days before it’s actually complete and you feel back to normal again.”.