The True Cost Of Migraines
Migraines cost a lot of money and time, not only for the migraineur, but for their employers, their families and for society at large, so more attention needs to be paid to treating this disease. This was the conclusion of a new study published in Value in Health. It has the exhausting title of The Burden of Migraine in the United States: Current and Emerging Perspectives on Disease Management and Economic Analysis. It also states that families with at least one migrainuer in it have to spend 2.3 times more money on health care than “normal” families.
Study Specs
The study was a paper chase, in a way. They went through archives on medical costs from PubMed MEDLINE database as well as any articles relevant to their topic. Interesting note that the oldest article they found on the outrageous cost of triptans like Imitrex was from 1992.
Practical Upshot
There wasn’t any final figure about how much migaines cost the US in its history, although the estimated direct cost of migraines for one year is $1 billion (and the authors say that’s a low estimate). By direct cost, that meant the cost of any hospitalization, drugs needed or appointments with a doctor.
It certainly does have a lot of impressive graphs, charts and percentage statistics, which is always good in trying to get politicians’ attention. Hopefully, it will also impress people who don’t have migraines into finally believeing that we migraineurs are not faking our attacks.
The obvious pain migraine attacks bring doesn’t seem to bring much in the way of sympathy or serious work on finding a cure — but perhaps showing what the impact on their wallets migraines cause will.
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