Dealing With Headaches

Even though there are hundred of blogs, magazine articles and television news segments devoted to migraines and headaches, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them. Just having a headache could be the symptom of hundreds of conditions or maladies. And there is still no general consensus on what causes a migraine — just a few theories. This is stuff we need to know and we need more headache research funding in order to find this stuff out.

Here’s A New Year’s Resolution For You

Want to get 2008 off to a flying start? Lets get some grassroots action going for more headache research funding! Growl at your Congressional representatives to stop wasting money with [insert your most hated government money wasting project here] and start spending money wisely by funding research for headaches and migraines. The best time to get their attention in this election year is in the EARLY part of the year (January and February, preferably.) By August, they won’t be paying attention to much else besides the polls.

In September, a group of doctors and headache suffers went to Washington, DC to speak about the need for more headache research fuinding. Considering that an estimated 28 million Americans are afflicted with headaches, why NOT invest in discovering the causes and finding better, safer treatments? Think of all the time you spend with headaches of one sort or another. I know that if I’ve put all the time together I spent being sidelined by a headache or migraine, I would have had at least two years to do something else.

Real Numbers

NBC news estimates that the cost of treating migraines and headaches in America costs at least $13 billion per year in lost time at work, work mistakes made because of pain, and work that has to be redone.

Migraines are considered the 12th most disabling conditions among Americans.

In 2006, only $10 million in total was spent on funding headache research, which is about 0.05% of the total budget for the National Institute of Health.

What Can You Do?

There’s a couple things you can do to spread grassrroots action for more headache research funding. Check out the relatively new website, which will be fully functional in January, the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy, download the flier, distribute it and then bother your representatives.

Hopefully, our suffering will be given a higher priority in time to affect the 2009 NIH budget. Although one of the best things you can do to ease headache pain is to lie down, that tactic often does work in influencing Congress.