UNDERSTANDING MIGRAINE | Disability Talk

From ‘The Migraine Trust’

Anyone who lives with migraine knows that understanding it is important. While the need to understand migraine is greater for healthcare professionals than the general public, it’s crucial that both are aware of its symptoms and the impact it has.

That’s why researching and seeking to learn more about migraine is so important to us, as is sharing that knowledge and opportunities to understand the condition.

Here are some opportunities to contribute to that understanding and to learn more about migraine yourself. We hope you can take part.

Living with migraine

We’re running a survey to assess how a year of living in a pandemic has impacted on people’s migraine. We ran two similar surveys last year which showed that it had a significant impact and want to see if this has continued. We are going to use the results for a report that we will be launching during Migraine Awareness Week in September, and we’d be grateful if you could share your experience in the survey. You can take part in the survey here.

Managing migraine

Thank you to everyone who came to our two virtual Managing Your Migraine sessions last week. Dr David Kernick lead a session on the importance of diagnosis and how to live with migraine and Dr Ben Wakerley discussed acute and preventive treatments for migraine. If you missed them or would like to watch them again, you can view them on our YouTube channel.

The Brain Prize lecture series

Migraine got the attention it deserves when our trustee Professor Peter Goadsby was one of four neuroscientists who won this year’s The Brain Prize. They won it for their discovery of a key mechanism that causes migraine which has led to ground-breaking new migraine treatments.

In recognition of their win, the organizers of The Brain Prize are holding a free online seminar series over the year. The series consists of one seminar per month from leaders in the field. If you’d like to learn more about migraine and the science behind it, you can see the full list of seminars and sign up here.

A life of helping people with migraine

If you’d like to hear how Professor Peter Goadsby ended up working in the area of migraine, you can hear him talking about his lifetime’s work of helping people with migraine on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific.

Lauren’s walk for migraine

Good luck to Lauren Williams who will take to the hills of Wrexham on 12 June and walk miles with her family and friends to raise funds for The Migraine Trust. Lauren lives with hemiplegic migraine which has seriously affected her life and she wants to help other people living with migraine, and says “I’m doing this to raise awareness of migraine and funds to help people with it. This is a debilitating condition, and raising awareness and giving support will hopefully help others”. If you would like to support Lauren’s fundraising, you can donate through her fundraising page.