If you get migraines, you already know they don't just stay in your head. The pounding pain might be the headline symptom, but the real story is how an attack can throw your entire body out of whack - making light feel blinding, everyday sounds unbearable, and even simple texts impossible to answer. That's because a migraine isn't just about sore neck muscles or scalp tension. It's a full-body neurological event, driven by a cascade of changes in the brain.
The representative survey of 2,200 people by the Migraine Trust found that 23% of mixed-ethnicity, 19% of Asian, and 16% of black respondents said their ethnicity had negatively affected their care citing poorer treatment and even racism compared with only 7% of white respondents. Black people were also more likely to fear discrimination or a negative effect on their career owing to migraines, at 37%, compared with just over a quarter (26%) of white respondents. Almost a fifth (19%) of Asian respondents and 14% of black respondents said they worried they would not be believed about their migraines, compared with 8% of white respondents.
And not just the ordinary sort of headaches that we all get, but I have something called cluster headache, which is one of the three primary headache disordersI mean, there are other primary headache disorders, but these are the three main ones: tension-type headache being the most common, migraine being probably the most familiar and most debilitatingand predominantly among women.