2023-09-12 08:31:48
It is not a simple headache, migraine is the third most common disease in the world and the second cause of disability among the population. In Spain, more than 40% of people who suffer from it are undiagnosed and less than 14% of patients who need treatment receive it.
They are figures of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) on the occasion of International Migraine Action Dayin which he provides numerous data on this disease that affects five million people in Spain alone.
The coordinator of the SEN Headache Study Group, Pablo Irimiaexplains that migraine is a neurological disease characterized by producing recurrent episodes of intense, disabling pain, which is described as pulsating and which are often accompanied by other symptoms.
“Nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light and sound and, in 30% of cases, other neurological symptoms called ‘aura’, which may include alterations in vision, sensory disorders or speech difficulties,” details Irimia. .
Prevents you from living a normal life
When the patient suffers migraine attacks, they suffer with great intensity and are very disabling, since they prevent them from leading a normal life, maintains the expert. But, also, depending on the frequency with which they appear, the disability can be even greater.
EFE/Justin Lane
This is the case of those who suffer from chronic migraine, one that produces headaches for more than fifteen days a month. In Spain there are 1.5 million people affected.
And although some people experience pain so intense that it prevents them from carrying out their routine daily activities when they suffer a crisis, which is an illness that significantly affects academic performance, emotional and mental health, and can cause stress , anxiety or depression, migraine is underdiagnosed.
What is the cause of underdiagnosis?
“At the SEN we estimate that more than 40% of people who suffer from migraine in Spain are still undiagnosed,” says the expert.
What is the cause of underdiagnosis? Fundamentally for two reasons, according to the SEN. On the one hand, because the symptoms are often confused with other types of headache, which leads to a “wrong” diagnosis or not seeking specific medical attention. And on the other hand, because there are “many people” who consider that it is a problem that has no solution and use pain medications that they can obtain without a prescription.
In this sense, the SEN calculates that at least 25% of migraine patients have never discussed their illness with a doctor.
The consequences
And poor management of the disease has consequences. The main one is the deterioration of the person’s quality of life and the pain becoming chronic: each year around 3% of those who suffer from migraine become chronic and 6% go from one low frequency to another. high frequency, according to figures from the Spanish Society of Neurology.
“These are worrying figures, and even more so, if we take into account that chronic migraine not only produces four to six times more disability than episodic migraine, but that patients who suffer from it usually have a worse response to different treatments,” says Irimia.
In fact, although more than 180,000 new cases of migraine could be detected each year in Spain, the number of diagnoses “is much lower.” Hence, the SEN insists that when the headache is frequent and begins to affect the quality of life or generates disability “It is essential to seek medical attention.”.
There is hope
The expert emphasizes that there are “important developments” in the treatment of this disease. He highlights the so-called preventive drugs, which are to reduce the frequency of crises, with monoclonal antibodies-CGRP and the arrival of gepants.
“In addition, new drugs for the treatment of pain crises such as gepantes and ditanes will soon be available. In general, preventive treatments are recommended for those people who have more than three migraine attacks per month,” indicates the expert from the SEN.
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