What will happen to me?

If you suffer from migraines, you are likely to get them regularly. But how often different people get attacks varies a lot.

The average is just over one attack a month. But at least 1 person in 10 who gets migraine will have an attack every week. And 1 in 5 people with migraine will have attacks that last two or three days.¹

If you have two or more migraine attacks each month, or if your attacks are very bad or last for a few days, you may want to ask your doctor about medicine you can take to prevent attacks. To learn more, see Treatments to prevent migraines.

You may also want to keep a diary of your migraine attacks. This will help you and your doctor track how often you have attacks and how long they last. It will make it easier to decide which treatment may be best for you.

When you have an attack, your headache will usually last from four to 72 hours. Your headache will gradually get better whether or not you have any treatment, but most people take medicine so they can get over the attack more quickly.

If you are a woman, you may get fewer migraine attacks as you get older. About two-thirds of women who have migraine get better when they reach the menopause.² This may be because certain female hormones are linked to migraine, and hormone levels change after the menopause.

Other conditions associated with migraines

If you get migraine attacks, you may be more likely than other people to develop other conditions. You may have heard that you are more likely to have strokes or fits (also called seizures). But there isn't very good evidence for this theory. It may be that if you have epilepsy (a condition that causes seizures), you are more likely to have migraines. Because the research isn't good, we can't say for certain how these conditions are related.

There is some evidence that women who are under 45 and get migraine attacks may be at a higher risk of having a stroke. The research comes from studies comparing people who have had strokes with those who haven't.³

Generally, doctors advise women who have migraines not to smoke. Doctors also advise women who take the contraceptive pill to choose one with the lowest possible dose of oestrogen. If you are a young woman who gets migraines, you may want to talk with your GP about your risk of having a stroke.

How do migraines affect your life?

People who don't get migraine attacks don't always understand how terrible these attacks can be. They may think you are making a fuss if you are off work with a headache or you have to rest in a darkened room. Yet a survey carried out by the World Health Organization rated having severe migraines as one of the most disabling long-term disorders that someone can have.¹

It's not just the pain of the migraine attack that you have to cope with. Many people with migraine feel tired or 'washed out' after an attack. These feelings can carry on for some time after the pain has gone.

To help your friends and family learn more about migraines, you may want to show them some of the information in this article.

Another large study from the US shows that most people can't carry on with normal activities during a migraine attack. More than half said their severe headaches stopped them working or doing household tasks or meant they had to stay in bed.⁴

To see for yourself how bad your migraine attacks are, try the Migraine Disability Assessment Scale (MIDAS) questionnaire, which is available at http://www.uhs.berkeley.edu/home/healthtopics/pdf/assessment.pdf

Doctors often use this questionnaire to find out how much of a problem migraine attacks are causing in a someone's life.