“The first thing that I'm usually asked about is whether migraine is just a headache or something else,” Dr Patricia Pozo-Rosich, Head of Neurology at Vall d’Hebron Hospital in Barcelona and president-elect of the International Headache Society, said during a live-streamed panel in the run-up to International Women’s Day. “I consider migraine a disease. On the days that you have migraine, it doesn't allow you to speak, to think, to act.”[i]
The debilitating nature of migraine is something that anyone who experiences the condition will be all too familiar with. And one of the factors that makes the social and economic consequences so significant is that the condition often begins during the years when people are establishing their education, careers, and family life.[ii] That means that migraine carries lifelong consequences for those who experience it. However, despite that profound impact, experts believe that the condition remains underdiagnosed and poorly understood.[iii]
Elena Ruiz de la Torre, Executive Director of the European Migraine and Headache Alliance, highlighted the very real challenges that many patients continue to face when seeking a diagnosis. “People need at least eight years to have a good diagnosis and a good treatment,” she said. “[I have experienced going] to the GP doctor, and they say, ‘Well, this is just a migraine, that’s not important.’ But for many people, it is the most important thing in their lives.”
See highlights from the discussion below
The panel agreed that part of the challenge lies in the fact that migraine is an “invisible” illness. Patients report that they often feel reluctant to discuss it because they fear being dismissed by both medical professionals and those around them.[iv]
“One of the main problems that we have is the lack of understanding,[v]” Ruiz de la Torre explained. “It has a huge stigma.iii We prefer not to say that we have a migraine attack than to say it and find someone looking at us like, ‘what is that? What do you have in your brain?’”
As a result, migraine is a condition that often remains below the radar, with people not seeking medical support because they believe their headaches are something that simply needs to be accepted.
“We received more than five thousand responses from women who have all the symptoms to be diagnosed as people with migraine, and they don't know it,” Ruiz de la Torre said. “[42% of respondents] have never been diagnosed, and they haven’t gone to a doctor because they think this is normal.”[vi]
There is also increasing evidence that the hormonal changes women experience during their lifetimes can play a significant role. Migraine can emerge in adolescence[vii] and can worsen during menstrual cycles, pregnancy, or perimenopause[viii].
About a fifth of women of working age suffer from migraine[xi]. 72% say that this has an impact on their working life[xii]
“Migraine affects through life during all of the stages of a woman’s health and different hormonal situations,” Pozo-Rosich said. “We have menstrual migraine, which is a very debilitating disorder and under-recognised, and then we have menopause, where migraine can strike back again.”[ix]
Training gaps also persist within the medical profession. “[In my experience] In medical school, there are only one or two hours dedicated to explaining migraine,” she said. “ [Some] physicians know very little about it[x], even though it is one of the most disabling conditions affecting people in their working years.”
The consequences extend beyond the healthcare system. Linn Mandahl, Vice-President for Europe Region South at AbbVie, explained that migraine also substantially affects workforce participation and consequently the wider European economy.
“If you look at women of working age, about a fifth of these women suffer from migraine[xi] and 72 per cent say that this has an impact on their working life[xii],” she said. “Migraine impacts GDP in a country negatively by around one to two per cent[xiii], and the productivity loss in the European Union is estimated at €27bn.[xiv]”
Portuguese MEP Catarina Martins, who has campaigned on gender inequalities in health policy, also highlighted that when women are impacted by conditions such as migraine, the impact is often felt far beyond the workplace.
“We have to think about the impact when a woman is sick not only in terms of work,” she said. “Women are often the ones caring for others. When a woman is sick, the elderly are not cared for in the same way. When a woman is sick, children are sometimes not cared for in the same way.”
For MEP Martins, the neglect of migraine reflects broader inequalities in how women’s health is understood and addressed at a policy level. That is something she and other campaigners want to see addressed.
“When you fight for women's health and women's rights, you are fighting for everyone,” she said.
Advocates argue for the development of a broader European strategy on neurological diseases and the inclusion of migraine in future research programmes. That could bring benefits that extend far beyond individual patients. Better diagnosis and treatment would improve workforce participation, reduce healthcare costs, and narrow the gender health gap.
If that were to happen, the benefits would be felt by everyone.
“The healthier Europe we have,” Ruiz de la Torre suggested, “The stronger Europe will be.”
This article is funded by AbbVie.
AbbVie SA/NV - BE-ABBV-260052 – March 2026
References
[i] McGinley JS, Mangrum R, Gerstein MT, et al. Symptoms across the phases of the migraine cycle from the patient’s perspective: Results of the MiCOAS qualitative study. Headache. 2024;65(2):303-314.
[ii] Steiner TJ, et al. J Headache Pain. 2020;21(1):137.
[iii] Raggi A, Leonardi M, Arruda M, et al. Hallmarks of primary headache: part 1 - migraine. The journal of headache and pain. 2024;25(1):189.
[v] Battista S, Lazzaretti A, Coppola I, Falsiroli Maistrello L, Rania N, Testa M. Living with migraine: A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. Front Psychol. 2023 Mar 28;14:1129926.
[vii] Allais G, et al. Gender-related differences in migraine. Neurol Sci. 2020;41(2):S429–36.
[viii] Kuruvilla DE, Hutchinson S, Moriarty M, et al. Understanding migraine throughout a woman’s life and the role of calcitonin gene-related peptide: A narrative review. Women’s health (London, England). 2025;21:17455057251376878.
[ix] Pavlović JM. The impact of midlife on migraine in women: summary of current views. Women’s midlife health. 2020;6:11.
[x] Guerrero et al. Need of guidance in diabling and chronic migraine identification in the primary care setting, results from the European MyLife anamnesis Survey. BMC Family Practice (2021) 22:54.
[xiv] European Migraine and Headache Alliance. What is headache? Available at: https://www.emhalliance.org/headache/. Last accessed March 2026.
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