18 Things Not to Say to a Person With Migraine
You responded to our original Things Not to Say article with more frustrating comments you’ve heard from misinformed people about migraines. In turn, we have included them in our updated graphics below.
While lowering stress levels is good for anyone, this will not eliminate migraine attacks, which are both genetic and neurologic in nature. Saying this will cause additional stress to us though, because we have enough to deal with in our lives without feeling guilty and judged by those we care the most about.
View the original post by Ellen.
People with chronic migraine use an enormous amount of energy trying to look as normal as possible, and we want to know that we have been successful. However, this statement sounds condescending and judgmental to the chronically ill – like we must not have a real disease because you cannot look at us and see the ravages it has caused in our lives.
While changing one’s diet can help eliminate certain triggers and help prevent migraine attacks, there is no diet to cure or prevent migraine.
A standard headache may only last a few hours, but a migraine attack can actually last several days. This can have a severe impact on a person’s everyday life.
Migraine, especially chronic migraine, is one of the worst kinds of pain there is and is often undertreated enough to cause disability to the patient.
Clinical depression and migraine are both primary (not caused by anything else) diseases involving neurotransmitters such as serotonin. While it is common for clinical depression and migraine to occur together — especially chronic migraine — it is certainly normal for anyone with a chronic disease to become depressed as a result of their experience and should be expected as a normal result of the patient’s illness.
A migraine attack is nothing like a regular headache. Migraines can involve severe, stabbing pain, nausea, vomiting, and hypersensitivity of the senses, among many other symptoms. Migraines can also last for days, and standard pain relievers are often ineffective.
It’s difficult to imagine anyone who would want to continue to have migraine attacks, so it can be particularly insulting when a person assumes you aren’t making an effort to get better. In fact, many people with migraine feel like they’ve tried everything, including over-the-counter treatments, holistic medicine, prescription medications, acupuncture, and every “fad” diet that exists.
You might not realize that most people with chronic migraine take preventive medicine every day. No two patients are alike, and what works for one will not work for another.
Actually, it’s not. Migraine is a systemic disease that affects nearly every part of our bodies, from digestive to circulatory and endocrine to nervous systems. Chronic pain eventually results in central sensitization and allodynia, which causes severe pain throughout our entire bodies.
Please, let’s not take this back to the dark ages when epilepsy was "demon possession" and "hysterical" women with tight corsets suffered "the vapors." Men experience migraine, too.
If you break your arm, will getting a hobby make your pain go away? Of course it won’t. Yet a migraine makes a broken bone look like fun at the circus.
While people with migraine want to know that their loved ones are thinking about them and want to help them, the chance that you have stumbled upon a miraculous treatment or “cure” that our specialists — or we who have suffered terribly with this disease — have not, is minuscule beyond measure.
While exercise is sometimes helpful for people with migraine when they are not in the midst of an attack, those who live with chronic migraine often experience back-to-back attacks that leave them with no time to go outside or exercise. Additionally, exercise is frequently a trigger for migraine attacks, especially in those who are chronic.
A migraine is also not “just a headache,” and a severe attack can even render a person unable to get out of bed, let alone go for a walk.
Dehydration is a known trigger of migraine, but it is not the only thing that can cause a migraine attack. Remembering to drink plenty of fluids, especially during the warm summer months, is critical to staying hydrated, yet this is only one piece of the puzzle in preventing a migraine attack.
This can be hurtful to anyone, regardless of religious beliefs. While prayer to any god or deity can play a part in a person’s overall health, there is no single treatment, behavior, or action that can serve as the cure-all for migraine.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Though rare, migrainous stroke takes the lives of patients every year. Migraine – especially chronic migraine – has been found to be tightly correlated with other serious or even potentially fatal health issues, and often it is the combination that is deadly.
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