poll results

17 February 2012

Poll: Migraine Pain more than a Headache

Migraineurs are dealing with a lot more than just head pain, according to a poll we recently conducted here at Headache and Migraine News. The pain of migraine comes in many forms – and sometimes pain comes from the migraine attack, while at other times a problem in another part of the body can trigger a migraine attack.

In this case, however, we were talking about pain during a migraine attack. Visitors were asked Other than your head, where do you experience the most pain (during a headache/migraine attack)?

It’s no surprise that neck pain and migraine pain are closely related. A full 71% of migraineurs said that they experienced neck pain during migraine.

Following that was other, with 8%, starting a list of other parts of the body where people experience pain.

Stomach is next on the list – very common (some people experience stomach pain instead of headache during a migraine attack – see more on abdominal migraine).

Back was next, and then skin (perhaps referring to cutaneous allodynia), and finally arms, legs, chest and feet.

In this poll, visitors were only allowed to choose 1 answer. But now it’s time to find out all the other kinds of pain that migraineurs experience. The new poll is similar – except that you can choose multiple answers. I’ve also added more possible responses: Other than your head, where else do you sometimes/always experience pain during a migraine attack? Add your votes now!

26 February 2011

“I saw this great migraine cure on TV!” – Patients Speak out about “Helpful Tips”

James Tips, Website news 2

Our most recent poll focused around how we as migrainuers or those with cluster or chronic headache feel when friends and family come to us with the latest news story about our illness.

The question was: How do you feel when a friend tells you about a treatment for your headache/migraine?

In this case, visitors were allowed to choose as many answers as they wanted. Let’s face it – some of us have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

The interesting thing was that there were actually a lot of positive responses. So, if you have a friend with headache/migraine, they may not want to actually bite your head off when you send them that Reader’s Digest article or the link to the news story. 😉

Still – let’s be open about it – sometimes we get a little frustrated.

57% had at least some positive reaction to their friend’s “helpful tip”.

All right, so that means that 43% had no positive reaction at all! Still, I think it’s healthy to be at least a little positive – if only to be thankful that someone knows you exist and they care enough to mention something to you.

41% said they were appreciative – there’s always something new to learn. 17% said they were excited – this could be the answer!

19% were somewhat neutral – or bored.

This group said they felt like they had heard it all before – the same treatments again and again, even though they already know they wouldn’t be helpful for them.

The rest had more strongly negative responses (again, remember that people could say they had both a negative and positive response).

37% were frustrated – the top response on the negative side.

Why frustrated? Because frankly they’re just tired of hearing the same things over and over – things that aren’t really helpful.

23% were sad.

Sad because, unfortunately, this often showed that people really didn’t understand. Do they really think that I’m just sitting around, not willing to try a treatment that will probably cure me? Do they think I haven’t really done my homework? Do they think that a simple procedure or treatment is likely going to completely change my life and make everything all right?

16% actually felt angry.

Not necessarily angry at the person sharing the information, but angry in general. They’ve had enough of these ridiculous so-called cures. Half the time they’re scams, someone trying to sell something, or someone who is just ignorant of the complexity of the problem.

Take aways?

If you’re on the receiving end, this can be frustrating. But try to cut your friend a bit of slack, if you can. On the other hand, don’t just put up with it – tell them how you’re feeling, and why. Do you not want them to mention these things? Or is there a more tactful, understanding way they could tell you about it?

If you’re out to give advice to a migrainuer, or someone with headaches, first realize that this is a complex disease that is different in everyone. It impacts every area of life. Your friend/family member has likely been dealing with, thinking about, talking about, investigating these things for a long time.

Information is useful – personally, I hate to turn anyone away who has information, even if I’ve likely heard it before.. However, in most cases the tip you heard will not be the miracle cure. There may be valid reasons why your friend may not even want to try it. Don’t judge quickly – and why not ask if there’s some way you can help?

It might help, by the way, if you got a quick primer on migraine, if that’s the issue. Start here, and take a few minutes out of your day to better understand your friend/family member.

And be sure to take our new poll, already in the sidebar!

9 November 2010

Patients Recognize a Wide Variety of Treatments

James Discoveries & Stats, Medications, News, Treatments 2

Our latest poll asked the question: Which of these (ie medications, supplements, other treatments) have been the biggest help to you?

At first the results may sound like a big yawn – predictably, medication was the runaway winner. So, it seems, more people have found help through medication than through anything else.

But wait – the news is both better and worse for medications. First, you can see right away that either medications, or medications combined with something else, were the runaway winners. 86% included medication as something that has helped.

But another interesting point – most people were not helped by medication alone. Let’s look at the chart that way:

So in actual fact, most people were helped by medication plus something else, or else by something other than medication.

Of those, the biggest chunk were helped by medications + supplements + another treatment!

Let’s look at this one more way. What percentage of people found either supplements, medications, or other treatments, to be helpful? Here’s what the results look like:

It’s tempting to say,"Oh, medications help the most people – I’ll focus on those!" But here’s the thing – there really is no clear winner here. If anything, the winner is variety. For example, let’s see how it looks if we do combinations vs single treatment:

Now you could argue that certain things may skew the results. After all, the millions of dollars of promotion in the medical wold goes to the medications. Then again, supplements (like magnesium, probiotics) and other treatments (like acupuncture, biofeedback) have a huge popular following.

But when push comes to shove, it’s clear that there is no one thing that works for everyone when it comes to migraine and chronic headache. It’s often medication, but not always. It’s often one thing, but often a combination (I would argue that it has to be a combination, if you’re working toward total health).

When we talk about the hundreds of treatments for migraine (for example), we’re not just talking about drugs (though there are a lot of those!) or supplements (lots of those too, well researched and effective) or other treatments (lots of those, including lifestyle changes). We’re also talking about combinations.

That’s why you can never try every possible treatment in your lifetime. And I’m not talking about quack treatments – I’m talking about well researched treatments that are helping real people.

Of course there are a lot of issues wrapped up in that – how to chose good treatments and not waste time and money on bad ones, how to safely combine treatments, and so on. But when all is said and done, that is the state of headache and migraine treatment, and this poll reflects it. There’s no silver bullet – but there are good treatments. Don’t give up!

Here are the full results:

Medications alone: 44%
Meds, supplements and other treatments combined: 21%
Meds and Supplements combined: 11%
Other treatments with meds: 10%
Other treatments alone: 9%
Supplements alone: 4%
Other treatments with supplements: 1%