Something a surprisingly large number of folks don’t know …
…is that migraine disease is not curable right now! There are only medications that attempt to try and treat it. Added to that, migraine is a SPECTRUM DISEASE, so while there are some who may get one or two moderate migraine attacks per year there are others on the opposite end of the spectrum who may get severe attacks every day. Then there is everything in-between!
To further complicate things, it is possible to be high frequency episodic (which means less than 15 migraine days per month) but with such a high level of severity that you are completely disabled. On the other hand, it is possible to have chronic migraine (15 or more days a month) but have primarily low grade migraine attacks that allow you to be functional, even though not happy! Again, with so many possible variations and combinations that it makes your head spin – literally (sorry, no pun intended for those who get vertigo with their migraine attacks)!
Now to add another complication – people with migraine can go back and forth between episodic and chronic at various times in their lives. Sometimes there are obvious reasons for this and sometimes there simply are not. I have been chronic multiple times in my life and then reverted to high frequency episodic when things have been managed better by treatments. Currently I’m chronic (thank you Aimovig for moving me in the wrong direction, lol) but the goal is to get back down to episodic again even if the CGRP medications don’t help.
There is always hope, especially now with all the new medications out and coming out over the next few years, plus we are already well into research for another class of preventive medications, so hold on! Be encouraged! And don’t be afraid to speak out to others about this disease & help break the stigma and misunderstanding that surrounds it!