Wear Red for Women's Heart Health!

I’m grateful to my migraine friend/colleague Teri Robert for bringing my attention to the connection between migraine disease and cardiovascular health.

Friday, February 4^th is Wear Red Day, a day when we don our sassy red shirts, scarlet scarves, tomato red shoes, or candy apple red unitards (hey, whatever floats your boat) to bring attention to heart disease in women. As Teri points out on her blog, heart disease risk is increased for migraineurs, especially those who have migraine with aura.

Heart disease runs in my family as does (you guessed it) migraine disease. So far my immediate family has been very lucky—my parents are in their sixties but remain in very good shape; my sister and I are pretty heart-healthy ourselves. It probably helps that no one smokes cigarettes. My grandparents and some aunts and uncles haven’t been so lucky—bypass surgeries, heart attacks, heart failure, and more have unpleasantly colored my family’s medical past. And, as I’ve said before, folks on both sides of the family have dealt with migraine disease.

I’ve not given a whole lot of thought to my heart health, so this awareness campaign is partly for me and others like me, young folks who are in relatively good health who might not think much about heart disease until it impacts us directly. I appreciate the opportunity to familiarize myself with the risk of heart disease in women, especially those who also have migraine disease.

So what will you wear on February 4^th? And will you take the chance to tell your friends, family, and colleagues why you’ve chosen to Wear Red for Women? The more people who know about heart disease, the better our chances of combating it.

Read more about the Wear Red initiative here.