A Migraine Quality of Life
Recently someone said to me, “It’s good that migraine isn’t interfering with your quality of life.”
My first impulse was to think, “Yeah, right. If she only knew.”
I know she meant well. Quite frankly, she caught me on a good day and only observed a few minutes of that day. Based on what she saw and heard, it didn’t appear as though migraine had any control over my life at all. I was alert and cheerful, dressed comfortably with make-up and a nice hairstyle. I looked good. Her assumption was false, but I cut her slack because the assumption was a reasonable one to make given the evidence.
That’s when I started thinking about the term “quality of life” and wondered what it really meant. In a healthcare setting, quality of life often refers to a patient’s ability for self-care. Someone who can manage the daily tasks of eating, getting dressed, and managing their personal hygiene is thought to have a good quality of life. Even in that context, migraine does occasionally affect my quality of life. In the middle of an attack, managing the activities of daily living is certainly a challenge.

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