News

7 June 2021

Only Two Weeks Away – Get Your Shades Ready!

That’s right, this year’s #shadesformigraine challenge is only two weeks away! So pull out your sunglasses and get ready to post to your blog or social media or wherever!

What’s this all about? Well, Shades for Migraine was started only four years ago (yes, here I am in 2017!) by the Association of Migraine Disorders to promote awareness about migraine and migraine sufferers. The social media campaign uses the hashtag – you guessed it – #ShadesForMigraine!

There are actually several easy ways to help. First, and most obvious – snap a picture of yourself wearing sunglasses, post it to social media, and use the hashtag.

But here are some other things you can do:

Challenge your family and friends to join you!
Wear unusual sunglasses, or wear sunglasses in an unusual place. When people ask you about it, tell them what it’s for and share a quick fact about migraine!
Post a meme ahead of time – there’s a nice selection right here.
Tag a celebrity with migraine – try to get them to join the campaign! – again, there’s a link to a current list here, or you may know someone else to tag.
Donate to Shades for Migraine and get some official shades or other items!
Become a Community Leader (details here)!
For more ideas, including materials in other languages, just click the graphic below.

24 May 2021

ACT Now Advocacy Training Program

James News, Resources 0

If you’re seriously interested in fighting against migraine and headache, you might want to consider the free ACT Now Advocacy Training Program that will be starting in July.

You might be familiar with Miles for Migraine, a non-profit organization in the USA which encourages fundraising for migraine research and promotion of materials that will educate and end social stigma. The “miles” come in during the regular “runs” which are used as fundraising events.

Well, the same group also has a training series of 8 virtual meetings to educate patients, caregivers and advocates. Here they explain some of the problems that they’re trying to solve:

The size and strength of a disease advocacy movement is one of the strongest predictors of resource allocation to that disease. Migraine and other headache disorders currently lack resources; lack of resources likely means limited diagnostic ability and fewer therapeutic innovations. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) consistently provides low-levels of funding relative to the disease burden of migraine; recently headache disease research warranted more than $103 million/year relative to disease burden but only received $6.8-$13 million/year.
ACT Now: The Advocacy Connection Team

If you’re interested, you can read about all the presenters and sessions here. Note that, as I write this, the dates have not been updated – there will be about one session a month, starting in July. But this will give you an idea of what’s coming.

The training program is completely free, but you do have to register, and, of course, attend the sessions.

To register now, or to request further information, just go to ACT Now Advocacy Training Program July Series – Patient Submission Registration.

21 April 2021

Is Acetaminophen/Paracetamol Really “Ineffective”?

James Discoveries & Stats, News 0

A recent headline says: “Paracetamol ineffective for most pain conditions“. So what’s the story when it comes to headache?

Is acetaminophen really effective for headache?

Paracetamol, also called acetaminophen, is still often known by the common brand name Tylenol. Along with aspirin and ibuprofen, it has been a well-known go-to when it comes to over-the-counter drugs for pain management.

The study (link below) was actually a review of 36 systematic reviews published in medical journals. In those reviews, 44 pain conditions were treated with acetaminophen/paracetamol.

Now, things start to get complicated once you drill down that far. Researchers had to watch for bias or errors in studies, or studies that weren’t relevant for whatever reason. And sometimes you end up with a small amount of information for certain conditions. But you do end up with a good summary of what we know, even if what we know is somewhat limited in certain cases. Make sense? 🙂

The study was also mainly focused on whether or not there was “immediate” pain relief, although a couple of conditions did focus on ongoing treatment (osteoarthritis pain and rheumatoid arthritis).

The good news for headache sufferers is that Tylenol for tension-type headache actually turned out to be one of the more successful stories – although, not that successful. Only two conditions made it to “high quality” evidence, but tension-type headache was listed under “moderate quality evidence of efficacy”. In other words, there is fair evidence that acetaminophen/paracetamol will provide some pain relief for that headache. Not exactly a miracle-cure, according to these researchers.

But notice that I only mentioned tension-type headache. What other headaches made the list?

Quite a few – but acetaminophen/paracetamol only had “low quality evidence” for these headaches:

Acute Migraine
Cold related headache

There was also low-quality evidence that it wasn’t effective for:

Migraine in children/adolescents

Of course there are many other headache types, but generally the evidence wasn’t available either way.

In the end, this study mostly tells us that surprisingly there are very few good quality studies of acetaminophen for headache conditions, and that most of the studies out there simply aren’t all that impressive, with the possible exception of tension-type headache. For other conditions, pain relief after surgery did not fare well, and the condition that really did not seem to be helped at all was lower back pain.

There was good news for craniotomy – surgeries in which the skull is opened up, and knee or hip osteoarthritis. However, researchers admitted that “the effect sizes were very small”.

The other good news is that the number of adverse effects was small – but again researchers noted that there wasn’t very much research to be sure.

It might surprise us that such a ubiquitous top-selling pain killer has so little research behind it. Of course, it’s a challenge to research a “pain killer” for every individual condition. If it kills pain, doesn’t it just pain?

Apparently not. And that’s another interesting point in this study. How well it works, and even adverse effects, depend very much on the condition.

—-> From what we know, if you take acetaminophen/paracetamol very occasionally for headache, and it works for you, no worries. But if headache is a significant disruption in your life, say every month or every week, you should be talking to a doctor to find better options. If that pain killer you’re using really isn’t making your life that much better, it’s time to realize that there are many more options out there.

To read the study, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, just click here: The efficacy and safety of paracetamol for pain relief: an overview of systematic reviews

14 April 2021

You Can Help: Migraine and Employment

James News 0

You have an opportunity right now to help investigate just how much migraine affects employees.

Harrisburg University of Science and Technology

We all know that migraine has a huge impact on the economy and on the workforce. Some employers have found brilliant ways to maintain and support employees who suffer from migraine. Many employees have also found ways to be amazingly productive in spite of migraine attacks.

But even with the best that we do, we know that migraine can cause major problems. So new research, led by Dr. Erin Buchanan at Harrisburg University in the USA, will aim to give us new information about where the biggest challenges are.

The study is explained like this:

In this study we will be exploring the impact of migraine on people in the workforce. Specifically, we are interested in determining if people with migraine are unfairly impacted to the point where they are passed over for promotions, pay raises, etc. Likewise, we are interested in learning if people in the workforce feel their migraines negatively impact their potential for career mobility, career options, etc.
Dr. Erin Buchanan and Clinvest Research

If you’re willing to give these researchers only about 30 minutes of your time, you can help with the study by filling out a survey. Information that you share will be confidential, and no personal information will be shared (more details available at the link below).

Impact of Migraine on People in the Workforce Survey

Thanks for your help!

Clinvest is actually running a host of migraine related studies. If this study isn’t for you, but you still want to help, you can find more information right here: Clinvest Active Headache & Migraine Studies

30 March 2021

The Brain Prize 2021 (video)

James Discoveries & Stats, News 0

Each year, the Lundbeck Foundation in Denmark awards “world’s largest brain research prize” to one or more researchers who have done important research on – you guessed it – the brain! And this year, the prize is bringing more attention to breakthroughs and continuing research in the field of migraine treatment.

As many of you know, the connection between CGRP in the body and migraine has become a major focus of new treatments, leading to the development of many new medications that are already on the market. The four winners of this year’s prize, from four different countries, were involved in that research. This presentation of the Brain Prize for 2021 gives each researcher a chance to share about the importance of this research, so I don’t want you to miss it.

The winners were:

Lars Edvinsson (Sweden)
Peter Goadsby (Australia)
Michael A. Moskowitz (USA)
Jes Olesen (Denmark)

Now, here’s your chance to listen to the presentation, and hear from these four important researchers. (If the video isn’t visible below, see the video here.)