Impression of Visual Migraine (Photo by By S. Jähnichen – File:Brandenburger_Tor_Blaue_Stunde.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6668898)

Dear Readers, very occasionally I get a brief case of retinal migraine – the photo above doesn’t quite do it justice, but it’s the closest I can find! Basically I get what looks like a bright, shimmering ‘hair’ in my right eye, that seems to just float about irritatingly. It usually crops up when I’m tired, hungry or stressed, and lasts for about half an hour. The only other effect I get is a slight light-headedness. I’m very lucky, I know.

There is thought to be some kind of genetic component to migraine, and my poor mother suffered horribly from full-blown migraine. One of my earliest memories is going into a darkened room where she was laying, and seeing her hitting her head against the wall. She was completely knocked sideways by the migraines, sometimes for days. She couldn’t bear the light, was often nauseous, and all she could really do was lay as still as possible until they passed. Luckily my grandmother lived with us, and so she was able to take care of my brother and I,  but we knew to be quiet and well-behaved when ‘Mummy wasn’t well’.

Things improved a little when the drug Solpadeine came to the market – Mum found that it helped if she took it as soon as she started to get the ‘aura’ that preceded an attack. But other than that, she just had to get on with it. She was most likely to fall ill around the time of her period, and she found that she could eat chocolate or cheese, but if for some reason she had them in the same meal, it was likely to trigger a migraine.

Approximately 10 million people in the UK alone suffer from migraine, with an estimated 3 million lost workdays per year, at a cost of £4 billion. More women than men are susceptible to migraine, and there are increasing numbers of children and young people who suffer from the disorder. And yet, I wonder if things have improved from my Mum’s day, when she was basically expected to take a few painkillers and muddle through? Like so many people, Mum worked out some of her triggers and avoided them, but I’m sure a lot of people never manage to work out exactly what strange combination of things brings on a migraine. The NHS are trying to establish a new regime for migraine and headache care, helping people to keep a ‘headache diary’ to see what causes their problems, developing support lines for patients and providing better information for GPs, which is a step in the right direction. Still, it reminds me of how many people are living under the shadow of a migraine attack every day.

Mum had a hysterectomy in her late fifties, and her migraines disappeared almost overnight – clearly for many women there’s a strong hormonal link. I’ve heard many women say that their migraines eased after the menopause. But it seems to me that we still don’t have an effective treatment for migraine, and that people are losing great chunks of their lives to a condition that knocks them sideways for days at a time.

However, there is some hope – a new treatment that is specifically for migraine, called Calcitonin gene-related peptide antibodies (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) (quite the mouthful) are used to target the chemicals that are produced prior to the onset of a migraine, and they seem be both safe and effective. They have to be given by injection, or infusion, and last for a few months. Currently, they are only available if three other preventative medications have been tried, and have failed, but they are definitely worth knowing about – there’s a factsheet here. I think my Mum would have tried anything to get her life back.

So, Readers, do any of you suffer from migraine, or know someone who does? Have things improved since my Mum’s day? What works for you, and what are your triggers?

The Migraine Trust has a lot of very useful information, and is currently planning a campaign to ask for better services for people with migraine. Long overdue, I’d say.