Migraine

Hello to everyone from Headache on the Hill - Teri and I are in the hotel. We had the training today and will be meeting with 2 senators and 3 congressman tomorrow! I am way too brain fried to say anything intelligent except that it's very exciting and we hope to get lots of support for more research dollars. Teri says hi, and good night!

- Megs

Hi Megan,

Can't wait to hear all about it.

Thanks Nancy!

As you know, coming back from an event like this, it will take a while to process and write about it all.

I was so impressed by the work the Alliance has done in putting together the facts and figures on the under-funding of Migraine research and the burden on society of Migraine disease and headache disorders. This is some of the information we were sharing with our legislators yesterday, and I have excerpted it in a blog post here: Headache on the Hill.

One of the questions I have had for a long time is why there are so few headache specialists and so few good drugs available that are truly specific to Migraine and headache disorders. I learned the most basic answer to those questions this week - there has not been funding to do the research necessary to grow this field of medicine!

I'm tired out after my debut as a lobbyist and my drive home, but I promise to come back tomorrow and write more on this site as well!

- Megan

Wow, Megs! Sounds like you had a great time!! Can't wait to read about it!!

Glad you got home safe!!!

Megs,

First off, I'm glad you're back, safe and sound! Secondly, thank you so much for heading up to DC and advocating for so many of us!

I just finished reading your blog and it's great! I look forward to hearing more about your adventure

Hi folks -

First I want to say, I know I promised I'd come back and write more here, and then I didn't! Sorry - work and fatigue got in my way.

What I want to share with you is this. The most powerful thing I learned, I think, is that the reason we don't have more qualified headache specialists, more effective treatments that are actually developed for Migraine and headache disorders (not hand-me-downs from other diseases), and thus more luck and success in treating and controlling our Migraines is... Migraine and headache medicine research is really in its infancy. Why is it in its infancy? It hasn't been funded!

Last Tuesday, around 35 - 40 of us visited the offices of over 150 senators and representatives, asking them to sign on to language that will direct the National Institutes of Health to spend more of the money that they already have on Migraine and Headache research. If we are successful, basic research can begin. Progress can begin to be made in the field. It will be worthwhile for more doctors to go into the field, eventually, because it will be one that is recognized, where advances are being made, where research is being done.

What I want to stress is that what we did on Tuesday is the very beginning of something. We need all of you to be advocates too. We need all your friends and family as well. The statistics we had in front of us, which we shared with Congress, are staggering. I'm not going to repeat them again here, I put them all in my blog post . But what struck me most powerfully is, there is a Migraine sufferer in one in every 4 families in the US! Talk to the people around you, and Migraineurs come out of the woodwork!

The congressional aides we met with meet with people every day who want them to do things, and though they were mostly sympathetic and impressed with our statistics, and some of them really seemed to see our points, they will need lots of reminders to do what we are asking them to do. Very soon, it will be time to email your congressional representatives, to add your voice, asking them to sign on to the language we brought them last Tuesday.

If you are on the AHDA mailing list , you will get an email asking you to act. And it will be easy - Teri is hard at work getting it all set up so all you have to do is fill in some information and it will be all done for you. Please join us - this is a way we can all make a difference, for our health, and that of our children and future Migraineurs.

- Megs