Take Action NOW for Better Migraine and Headache Treatment!

Do we  want, need, and deserve better Migraine and headache treatments? Absolutely yes!

Think there's nothing you can do? But there is! You can take five minutes to send an email to your Representative in the House of Representatives. It's easy and only takes about five minutes. The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy site is set up for us to send an email to our Representative, even if we don't remember who he or she is.

PLEASE, go to www.AllianceForHeadacheAdvocacy.org NOW. Click the "What YOU Can Do" link in the left column. You will go to our Alert Center. There is a box with our Featured Alert. Simply click the red "Take Action" button in the Featured Alert box. That will take you to a letter that's ready for you to add what you want to say about this issue, fill in your name and address, and have your email sent directly to your Representative. It is urgent that you do this NOW because the House is setting 2009 funding appropriations in just a few days.

Here's one undeniable fact for you...

Under-funding of NIH research on headache disorders has denied millions of affected Americans equal access to the benefits of publicly funded research programs and the promise of effective headache care.

At this point, I am pleading with you. If you have Migraines and headaches yourself or know someone who does, please go to http://www.allianceforheadacheadvocacy.org/  and take action! I'm doing this not just for myself, but for my grandchildren who have Migraine disease. I want their lives to be impacted less by Migraine than mine has been. I want them to have better care and not have the health complications that Migraine disease has caused me. We must do this for ourselves and for future generations.

If you need some background on this issue, read on...

Many of us have shared the frustration of trying to find effective treatments for our Migraines and headaches. Part of the frustration is that there are absolutely no medications available that were actually developed for Migraine and headache prevention. Not one. We must use medications that were originally developed for other purposes then found to coincidentally help with Migraine and headache prevention.

Why is it that all the medications we have for prevention are hand-me-downs from other conditions? One reason is lack of funding for original, basic Migraine and headache research that is needed to pave the way for the development of medications and other treatments. This type of research is usually government funded, coming from research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

You need to know these facts about NIH funding on Migraine and other headache disorders...

• The NIH has never funded research on headache disorders at adequate levels.
  • The NIH expended less than $10 million in 2006 towards all research on headache disorders, comprising less than 0.05 percent of its total budget.
  • There is no NIH intramural research program on headache disorders.
  • There is no NIH study section for grant review wholly devoted to pain research, let alone headache disorders.
  • Migraine has very rarely been prioritized for NIH extramural research funding.
• NIH inattention to headache disorders has discouraged scientists from pursuing research in this field and contributed to the limited development of new therapies.
  • NIH under-funding has resulted in a very small community of active headache research scientists and few quality headache grants submitted for NIH funding.
     

Here are some important facts about Migraine disease and other headache disorders...