it's wild that popular discourse around migraines is that there are too many people who claim to have migraines but "just have bad headaches". this is the exact opposite of my experience? i'm still trying to convince several of my friends that their "bad tension headaches" that are unilateral, throbbing, cause light sensitivity, nausea, etc, are migraines lmao. migraine is underdiagnosed and undertreated by every metric i can think of.
this narrative is not harmless! it prevents people from getting treatment that could really benefit them. so i would like it to die. thank you.
As a guy who went to see a neurologist only to "rule out migraines" because I thought I had "tension headaches at worst and also it's not that bad really" only to realize by tracking my headache days that I have very bad chronic migraines just with no aura (most people with migraines don't have them), I co-sign this 100%.
Just starting abortive medications already improved my quality of life so much and now that my doctor started me on preventatives, I might actually be able to have more than a handful of headache-free days each month.
Migraine is frequently misdiagnosed as chronic sinusitis or tension headaches according to research. Mostly because people have a very rigid (inaccurate) idea of what it actually is.
But even if it's not migraine, you still deserve treatment for your headaches. Just because someone else has them worse than you doesn't mean you don't deserve relief.
Learning about the different types of migraine and headache disorders can help you better understand your symptoms and discuss them with you
yeah i found out awhile back that the 'pressure headaches' that i get that 'aren't that bad' (but still leave me feeling sick and dysfunctional all day) were migraines. i now take a low dose of a preventative medication and the number of shitty rain days i have per month has dropped from like ten to two. it's great.
In my experience anyone who has chronic pain of any kind ALWAYS under diagnoses it in part cause people who DON'T have chronic pain always tell them how it's Not That Bad Just Get Over It and it takes a lot of fighting to get anyone (including doctors) to do anything about it. Fucked if I know why. Everyone seems to think we're making it up. I've never met anyone who is making it up.




















