15% of the world’s population suffers from migraines. This neurological disease results from abnormal neuronal excitability, which is linked to complex genetic factors combined with environmental factors, as detailed by Inserm. On the 24 Heures site, Marie-France Lemire recounts the ordeal she endures on a daily basis.
“It is aggressive. We tend to fear migraines. I sleep at night dreading tomorrow. Will I get a headache? It’s a bit like torture“, says the 41-year-old patient. Because of this illness, which she has been suffering from since the age of 9, she cannot work full-time.
What is the origin of migraine? Inserm points out that the hereditary nature of the disease has now been established since the 19th century. “Not a migraine gene, but a susceptibility that depends on a combination of different genetic variants: more than a dozen migraine susceptibility genes have been identified since 2010. They specifically code for proteins involved in mechanisms involved in communication between neurons, such as glutamatergic regulation.“
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Depression
Some people – in the worst case – suffer from pain 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”They are permanently disabled. Neurologists don’t know what to do with this. Some even have the status of a disabled person. It’s not funny. They sometimes even wonder if they won’t be eligible for medical assistance in dying.“, reports Marie-France Lemire.
“From elementary school, when I started having periods, it became very invasive in my daily life. No medication was effective or tolerable. And nothing could stop the attacks. The neurologists didn’t really know what my case was. What to deal with. It was very. Stressful. I had to learn to live with my condition until 2012 when I went into severe depression after a few years of having one or two migraines a day.“, says the patient. This teacher was forced to quit her job because of her migraines.
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She received Botox injections in 31 areas located on the forehead, skull, neck and trapezius. But, despite this, she still suffers from migraines for an average of 15 days per month. The World Health Organization has ranked migraine among the twenty diseases with the highest social impact.
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