The Migraine Research Foundation is helping children with chronic migraine. One of the ways their helping is by giving funding to researchers such as Dr. Golda Ginsburg, who is studying approaches to treatment for children migraineurs.
In this video, hear Dr. Ginsburg discuss her research.
You’re all ready to enjoy that special day – and then Cousin Mig arrives. You know what I’m talking about – a migraine attack when you least want it. A very special day, lost.
Well, 15 chronic migraine sufferers in the USA will have a chance to win a recreation of that moment they missed.
(Note: I know, I’ve been promising a contest that’s a little more global – but this isn’t my contest – I’m just reporting it! Don’t shoot the messenger!)
To enter, you must confirm that you have chronic migraine and share your story. This musy be a story you’re willing to share publicly.
And no, recreating your special day is not about going out to McDonalds. The prize, worth several hundred dollars, will be a day coordinated by Beverly Hills celebrity event planner Mindy Weiss. She has coordinated events for people such as Hilary Duff and Mike Comer, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, Kimberly Williams and Brad Paisley, Jennifer Lopez and Brooke Shields.
So yeah, you can expect a pretty special day.
One question I haven’t been able to answer yet – what if this next special day is interrupted by Cousin Mig?
Well, I’m afraid that’s the reality of life. However, the good news is that you will have a hand in coordinating the event – so you and Mindy can do everything possible to make sure it’s a special day where migraine is clearly not invited.
This is what Mindy herself has to say about the contest:
I feel incredibly blessed to be able to make my living helping people celebrate their most special moments. Whether it’s seeing a bride walk down the aisle or watching a couple mark their wedding anniversary, there is nothing that brings me more joy than watching these special moments being made. I recently learned that people with Chronic Migraine live half the month or more with headaches and often miss once-in-a lifetime moments with their loved ones. In my opinion, this is just devastating!
This is why I am honored to be a part of the Rewrite Your Day campaign to help educate people about Chronic Migraine. I’ve partnered with the National Headache Foundation, HealthyWomen and Allergan on this important initiative. Together, we will give 15 eligible people living with Chronic Migraine the opportunity to have a special moment they’ve lost to their condition rewritten by me and my team of lifestyle experts. These 15 special events represent the 15 days or more that people with Chronic Migraine live in pain with headaches.
For more information and to enter the contest, click the graphic below:
In a step forward for Botox in Canada, Health Canada approved Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) for treatment of chronic migraine.
It was a step back for the makers of Botox in the country (Allergan Canada) back in 2009 when Health Canada began warning patients that Botox could spread to other parts of the body in some cases ("distant toxin spread"). However, for many patients the benefits still outweigh the risks.
Although it hasn’t been the magic bullet for chronic migraine sufferers, it has provided significant relief for many. But that relief comes at a cost – no, quite literally – the treatment tends to be very expensive.
It is hoped that, as the official agencies in various countries recognize the benefits of Botox, that insurance companies will as well. If Botox can significantly cut down on migraine attacks and symptoms, it’s in the best interest of insurance companies to cover the treatment.
Again, this approval is for those with chronic migraine, not those who have an attack once a month. The treatment involves injecting small amounts of Botox beneath the skin, usually around the forehead and temples, and sometimes other locations such as the neck. Learn more about Botox injections here.
Read more here: Botox muscle relaxant gets OK for use in migraine treatment
Last month I was in Calgary, Canada, and I was glad to see the Calgary Herald giving attention to chronic pain conditions. Although more attention could have been given to migraine and headache disorders (I’m not biased or anything), I appreciated the fact that pain was recognized as a major challenge.
Here are some quotes from the first article in the series. To read the whole article, click the link below.
One in five Canadians – roughly six million people – is living with chronic pain of some kind, sometimes as a result of trauma or illness, and sometimes for no obvious reason at all.
Doctors who treat patients living in pain say that any wait for care beyond six months is medically unacceptable, because early intervention can keep lives from turning into train wrecks. Uncontrolled pain can cost people their jobs, careers, homes, marriages, friends and sense of identity. People, including young mothers – and the burden of pain is greater for women than for men -lose the ability to take care of their families. Constant severe pain deadens personalities. Looking in the mirror, Heshusius said she sometimes hardly recognizes herself. "Who is she?" she wonders.
Pain is demoralizing and isolating. It can destroy people financially. People unable to work lose their benefits; they lose fights with insurance companies and workers’ compensation.
The instinct is to retreat, to curl up and wait for the torment to stop. People living with chronic pain are twice as likely to suffer major depression as people living without pain.
Does this sound familiar?
Experts blame the meagre training health professionals receive on assessing and managing pain (a survey of 10 major Canadian universities found that veterinary medicine students receive, on average, 87 hours of mandatory training in pain, versus 16 hours, on average, for medical students); inadequate funding for research (just one-quarter of one per cent cent of all federal dollars for health research in Canada go to pain); a health system that doesn’t compensate doctors for the time it takes to provide meaningful pain care ("we take up too much time," pain patients say over and over again), stigmatization and attitudes toward people with pain and a strong reluctance to prescribe opioids for chronic non-cancer pain.
So patients struggle to find doctors to help them, leaving the burden of care to fall on over-stretched pain clinics and the small number of community doctors willing to help. People with pain describe being treated like street addicts when they land in emergency rooms in a pain attack so severe they can barely put one foot in front of the other.
Lous Heshusius says what’s needed is a sea change in society’s mindset about pain.
"There is so much in society that works against pain relief, against us getting help – structural problems, political problems, funding problems."
We live in a society that says only that which can be seen and measured is true and valid and real, she says, "and I think that is doing us in."
She says she can’t count the times she has heard, "But you look fine." Or, "Can’t you take some pain pills for that? People have no idea what kind of lives we live."
Read the full article: Canadians living with agony of chronic pain (sorry! The article is no longer available.)
Dr. Edmund Messina is back – once again wanting to spread the word about headache, migraine, and the situations that people have to deal with in the midst of chronic illness.
You might remember the previous work of Dr. Messina and his team – Life and Migraine. The goal of this first film was to give us a glimpse into the life of someone with migraine, and to help us see what they had to go through to get help.
I just received an email from Dr. Messina about his new movie (he wrote, produced, and directed), "Lily’s Mom", starring Kimberly Harsch. I’m hoping to review it in a few weeks time.
Meanwhile, here’s a brief synopsis:
Mary is a mother who comes from a dysfunctional background. She struggles to be a good role model for her 8 year-old daughter, Lily, in the midst of crippling headaches, loss of job, deteriorating marriage and abuse.
The story is told through her conversations with her therapist as she learns to become her own advocate and overcome what seem to be insurmountable obstacles, including deaths, poor health-care and being thwarted by bizarre people in her life.
Mary’s struggles and eventual triumph are driven by her need to give little Lily the ‘normal’ life she herself never had. The that the personality disorders and psychiatric characteristics of the characters are medically accurate, making this very touching drama ring true to the viewer.
If you want to see the trailer, click the image below to go to YouTube:
For more, visit the official Lily’s Mom website. Now that Dr. Messina is done with this project, he’s looking forward to other similar works to highlight the struggles people have dealing with headache and migraine.