At the age of 26, Marine ended her life because she could no longer tolerate her chronic migraines.

For the first time, they decided to testify to tell the story of the Marine’s ordeal. On November 5, 2021, this 26-year-old woman ended her life, she was no longer able to bear the severe migraine pain. Violent headaches that attacked her for about twenty days each month, without warning, and she was unable to find relief due to particularly expensive recommended treatments.

“She had to sleep in her room when she had a seizure. We found her prostrate in the dark,” said her mother Parisian, creating a period of absence of sometimes four months during a school year. “As soon as he got up, he was like a jackhammer. She had the impression of an unbearable pressure in her head,” adds her husband Nicholas, for whom the implications of this pathology “have not been underestimated”.

Hoping for a clinical trial

Tests performed to measure the impact of migraine on daily life show a result of 70/78. At the time, no basic treatment worked on the Marines. We have to wait until 2020 to see a glimmer of hope when the girl is offered to join a clinical trial for a year. The results were felt quickly: “The number of migraines was divided by two, even three,” Nicholas attests.

But at the end of this trial, the migraine episodes and pain became so severe again that the Marine found himself on sick leave for eight months. The girl also faced a big problem: the cost of the treatment provided (Aimovig) would now be her responsibility, ie 1,000 euros per month. “We considered everything: working two jobs, retraining, getting treatment abroad. But it was complicated,” says her husband Nicholas.

15% of chronic migraine sufferers have thought about suicide

In October 2021, the Drôme Primary Health Insurance Fund rejected his request for “financial assistance to participate in the costs incurred by the purchase of non-reimbursable drugs”, despite the general practitioner’s support. She believed the young woman’s resources were “in excess of the scale bracket allowing her to qualify for this assistance.”

A few weeks later, Marine ended his life without leaving a word for his loved ones. According to a study conducted by the Voix des Migraineurs Association and relayed by Parisian15% of people with chronic acute migraine have considered suicide.