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Migraine affects 11 million French people, but sometimes remains misunderstood by those around them. On the occasion of June 21, World Day of Solidarity for Migraine, the AbbVie laboratory is launching a major campaign to talk about it more freely.
Simple migraine headache? Not really. For 11 million French people, it is a well-known pain, which remains debilitating. For 900,000 of them, it is even a chronic condition that can ruin life. However, it often remains minimized and by the entourage who does not fully understand its impact.
Chronic migraine, much more than just a headache
It is estimated that when the headaches persist for at least 15 days per month for more than 3 months, with the characteristics of a migraine headache for at least 8 days per month, it is then a chronic migraine. It’s hard to imagine that one can endure suffering for so long. Yet 1/3 of migraine patients never consult about their migraine. Worse, according to a survey by the Voix des migraineux association, 45% of spouses do not understand this disease and 10% do not consider it to be a real neurological disease.
In fact, there is nothing simple about chronic migraine: it remains a debilitating disease whose impacts affect the daily lives of patients both personally and professionally: at work, it causes days of absenteeism. In personal life, it makes chronic migraine sufferers likely to resort to drug overuse and makes them twice as likely to be prone to anxiety or depression. Migraine should therefore be taken seriously.
“Put Your Migraine on Pause” June 21
To better understand these headaches and support patients in their care journey, the AbbVie laboratory is launching the campaign “Put your migraine on pause” on June 21: the day of the Fête de la musique, but also of the World Day solidarity for migraine. Because music and migraine are linked: music can amplify the symptoms of migraine, or on the contrary, soften them.
The campaign, which will be found in health professionals, pharmacies and in the public space, will invite those concerned to put their migraine on mute, because yes, it is possible to make this disease silent thanks to taking adapted and personalized load.
A tool, the website stopmigraine.fr, also offers people suffering from headaches a tool to discover the impact of their migraine on their daily life, which will help them better understand their pathology. Are you in pain? So talk about it, it’s the first step to silence this migraine.
Slide: The different causes of migraine