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• Migraine can affect different aspects of daily life, including career, relationships, family life, and overall well-being.1-3
• Preventive migraine treatment can help reduce the frequency and severity of migraine attacks. Preventing migraine attacks before they start can help manage the impact of migraine on daily life.4
• Newer preventive treatment options, such as calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) targeting treatments, were designed specifically for migraine. Studies have found that they are effective in reducing migraine attacks and that they may help in improving quality of life.4
The impact of migraine goes beyond your health. Migraine attacks can be unpredictable, and their effects can be long-lasting. They often affect different aspects of daily life, like your job, your social life, your family, and your overall well-being. Treatments that prevent migraine attacks before they start can help stop migraine from interrupting your daily life.
You are not alone in this experience. Over 1 billion people around the world live with migraine.5 A MyMigraineTeam member shared, “Migraine has changed my whole life — friends, family, and career.”
— A MyMigraineTeam member on how migraine affects their daily life
Keep reading to learn more about ways migraine can impact your daily life. Understanding the effects of migraine on your life can help you communicate them to your health care provider. From there, you can figure out the treatment plan that’s right for you.
Whereas rescue treatments target symptoms after a migraine attack begins, preventive treatments can prevent migraine symptoms, helping to keep them from disrupting your life.4 Rescue treatments alone aren’t always enough for everyone with migraine.7 Experts suggest evaluating a person for preventive migraine treatments for situations in which migraine significantly affects a person’s quality of life despite the use of a rescue, or acute, treatment.7 Preventive treatment may also help reduce the reliance on or use of rescue treatments.4
According to the American Headache Society (AHS), preventive treatments aim to improve quality of life and lessen disability by reducing the frequency of migraine attacks and how severe they are.4 However, only a small proportion of people who qualify for preventive migraine treatments actually use them.4 Some of the reasons people may stop using preventive treatments include issues with efficacy and tolerability.4
Improving Quality of Life Is an Important Goal of Migraine Prevention
Previously, preventive migraine treatments were focused on how they affected the frequency and severity of a person’s migraine attacks.4,8 Now, preventive treatments are measured by not only those factors but also how they affect a person’s daily functioning and quality of life.4,8 Experts use tools called patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures to assess how migraine and preventive treatments affect different aspects of life, including9,10:
Using these measures when studying newer migraine treatments shows that researchers recognize the importance of improving the quality of daily life as a goal of newer preventive migraine treatments.8 However, a study showed that while providers report the negative impact of migraine on function as one of the most important factors in determining how a person is doing on their treatment, providers do not always ask about it, and people often do not bring it up if not asked.11
If you’re living with migraine, understanding the effects of the disease on your daily life and discussing this with your provider can help you figure out if your migraine treatment is working for you and if you might need to adjust your treatment plan (such as switching or adding treatments).
Hear Dr. Christopher Gottschalk, a board-certified neurologist, headache specialist, and paid consultant of AbbVie, explain patient-reported outcomes.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:00
Dr. Christopher Gottschalk
Hello, I'm Dr. Christopher Gottschalk. I'm a board certified neurologist and headache specialist and president of the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy. Migraine is one of the most important diseases in the world, affecting about a billion people worldwide, but did you know according to the Global Burden of Disease study, that migraine is the leading cause of disability in people under 50 years of age?
00:00:26:02 - 00:00:51:22
Dr. Christopher Gottschalk
In fact, migraine causes more years lived with disability than all other neurological disorders combined. Reduction in the number of migraine days is typically used as an important primary endpoint, but this endpoint does not capture what matters most to patients and providers: quality of life. Now, let's look at the data from the CaMEO analysis, which shows one out of three have had their careers impacted by migraine.
00:00:51:23 - 00:01:14:06
Dr. Christopher Gottschalk
Almost 40% feel they would be a better parent if they did not have migraine, and nearly half feel they would be a better partner if they did not have headache. Recent trials have begun to assess the impact of preventive therapy on validated patient-reported outcome measures, or PROMS, assessing migraine related quality of life such as MSQ, MIDAS, and countless others.
00:01:14:08 - 00:01:42:16
Dr. Christopher Gottschalk
Now, health care providers can focus on choosing the preventive therapy that may improve the everyday well-being of their patients. As health care providers, we can shift the dialogue with our patients and focus on how migraine impacts important PRO domains like home activities, energy levels, concentration and clear thinking, physical activity, work activity, and social activity. Discussing how early and significantly treatment can impact quality of life,
00:01:42:22 - 00:02:19:11
Dr. Christopher Gottschalk
using at least one PRO domain in a post-treatment follow-up discussion, and asking the question: What have you been able to do that you couldn't do before you started this treatment? To recap, migraine is not just a numbers game. The true goal is to improve a person's overall quality of life. Patient-reported outcomes are the future of migraine research, and the increased focus on functional outcomes has the potential to dramatically impact treatment decisions and improve provider and patient understanding.
Newer Preventive Treatments Specifically Target Migraine
Researchers recently came up with newer preventive drugs that are specifically designed and approved for migraine. These newer medications are called calcitonin gene-related peptide targeting treatments — or CGRP treatments for short.4
Studies show that these newer treatments are safe and work well for preventing migraine attacks.4 CGRP treatments have demonstrated how they may help improve the quality of life and daily well-being of people with chronic or episodic migraine.4,8
The American Headache Society has recommended CGRP treatments as a first-line treatment option for preventing migraine, alongside other first-line treatments.4 Other first-line preventive treatments include non-migraine-specific treatments (originally developed for other diseases) such as beta-blockers, anticonvulsants, and antidepressants.4
Based on the AHS recommendation, you may not need to try non-migraine-specific treatments before being eligible for a CGRP treatment.4 CGRP treatments also come in various forms, including injections, infusions, and oral pills, so you can choose the treatment that best fits your lifestyle.4
The different facets of daily life discussed in this article — like relationships, social life, mental health, energy levels, and work — are all important to your overall quality of life. Preventive migraine treatment options can help reduce the frequency of migraine attacks and stop them from disrupting your life.4 Newer preventive treatments specifically developed for migraine have been shown to help reduce migraine attacks and improve quality of life.4,8 If migraine has a great impact on your daily life, talk to a health care provider about your options for preventing migraine attacks.
ABBV-US-01642-MC V1.0 Approved 8/2024
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April Reese, Ph.D., a director of U.S. Medical Affairs at AbbVie
is currently focused on supporting migraine-related initiatives.
Learn more about her here.
Elizabeth Wartella, M.P.H., an editor at MyHealthTeam who has written this article in collaboration with AbbVie
holds a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University. She is passionate about spreading accurate, evidence-based health information.
Learn more about her here.
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