Health Initiative in Saudi Arabia: "Take action against migraine"

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in 20 adults complains of headaches every day or so. Recent studies indicate that headaches are common in developing and developed countries: more than half of women have headaches and one third of men, and at least one in seven adults in the world suffers from migraines.

Migraine
Migraine is a very common disease that affects everyone on every continent in the world. It is three times higher in women than in men, because of hormonal factors. Migraines have been better studied than other headaches. Migraine often begins in adulthood, but can affect many young people, including children, and affects mainly people aged 35 to 45, causing severe pain in the patient until the patient is spared, as well as recurrent episodes of headaches. As well as the constant fear of the next fight, can affect the family life, social and functional, in addition to the financial costs.
> Migraines in Saudi Arabia. Novartis, as part of the launch of the initiative "Take action against migraines and migraines" and awareness campaigns to raise public awareness of health issues to help migraine patients, launched in Saudi Arabia in According to the latest estimates, the number of migraines in Saudi Arabia would reach about 10% of the population, or about 3 million patients, and that the disease would affect one in two Five women, three times more than men, are consistent with the Global Statistics and that most patients are women aged 20 to 45 years.
> The economic burden of the disease, according to a study conducted by Professor Mohammed bin Ali Al-Jumaa, a neurologist at King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh and Executive Director of the King Abdullah Medical Research Center, In Saudi Arabia, absences from an official suffering from headaches are estimated to 24 days. If we multiply this rate by the number of patients, estimated at 3 million, the economic burden will be heavy.
According to what was published in the supplement to your health by the number 14402 of the newspaper "Middle East", the global study on the global burden of disease, which included 195 countries, concluded that migraine was the third in the ranking of most common diseases in the world and migraine attacks. This is the second of the diseases that prevent patients from performing normal daily activities in relation to the number of years equivalent to a disability or disability.
Migraine attacks have a negative impact on the state's economy and affected workers suffer from low productivity, absenteeism or low productivity at work, despite the presentism. .

– Health and psychological effects
> In good health, migraine can cause severe pain or a feeling of pounding, usually on one side of the head, often accompanied by nausea and vomiting. Migraine pain can persist in two-thirds of patients and last longer than 4 hours to a few days. One third of patients have more than 3 days of headaches a month. The affected person tends to sit in a dark, low-noise place until the attack of a headache lasting anywhere from 4 to 72 hours. The pain can be very severe and violent, and sometimes even severe, so that the patient gets sick and prevents him from doing his normal daily activities. He prefers to stay in the dark for long periods to prevent the light from causing disability.
Psychologically, many studies confirm a relationship between migraines and various mental disorders. A review of a series of studies conducted in 2016 found that most people with bipolar disorder had migraine headaches and that migraine sufferers were twice as likely to develop a generalized anxiety disorder, and that people with depression were also more likely. Among others, the risk of migraine is three times higher due to the feeling of disability and debilitation associated with the disease.
On the other hand, the mother may feel the guilt of shortening family obligations to her husband and children, as well as the fear of attacking her migraine outside the home, away from her family , and increase the level of anxiety because they do not know when will be affected by migraine and interfere with the burden of the family. And work In addition, some people make fun of women who suffer from severe migraines, hence the beginning of the stigma of mental and neurological diseases, and the headache is related to mental health.
Another study found that about one in six migraine patients had committed suicide at some point in their lives.
> Social. According to a poll of opinion, about 25 to 40% of patients believe that the partner is amazing: the magnitude and intensity of the disease have such a negative impact on the activity of the wife and housework. In fact, the family is one of the people most affected by migraine, the mother is a housewife who can not perform the tasks assigned to her and some may think that she escapes those who claim to have a headache.
> The achievement of learning, the incidence of migraine at an early age, will certainly affect the level of education and success, as well as work and productivity, especially if we know that most of the ills of between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm, the most productive day, and that 90% of patients can not do their work during the migraine period and that more than half of the patients have to work part-time, which affects their ability and their standard of living.
Finally, although migraine is a heavy and multiple burden for the patient, his family and the economy of his country, it remains one of the least common diseases in the world: many do not recognize it as a true neurological disease, and some simply consider it a serious headache. This is why specialists and interested in this disease need to step up their awareness programs and educate their patients, because of the importance of reducing the number of migraine days and reducing its impact on the patient's life. and his family.

– Community Medicine Consultant