Misunderstanding chronic migraine – The Saturday Paper – March 2018


Photo by Shifaaz shamoon on Unsplash

For Aimèe Parfrey, 24, it begins with a visual aura – a static line in her vision that disrupts her sight and lets her know that a storm of pain is coming. Next comes speech disruption. Parfrey thinks she is speaking normally, but what comes out is “pure gibberish”.

Things get much worse before they get better. “Usually migraine progresses from the vision, to the speech, to the pain, which can come on gradually or like a massive thunderclap,” she tells me. “Both are just as awful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

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