You go to your (or a) GP and request treatment for migraine to be told off the cuff (not through answering any formal questionnaire or assessment) it's a sign of "stress" "depression" or "anxiety" and treatment is refused.

If you're "lucky" enough to get the "anxiety/stress" diagnosis then you may as well kiss any medical monitoring or treatment for any condition goodbye as everything will be seen as being due to your "anxiety". (I also have tachycardia so regularly get refused blood tests deemed necessary to the rest of the population, BP checks, and a specialist recommended yearly scan and so forth).

To make it worse it appears that your (or a) GP will ride on this diagnosis for years so you can't even get a time limit set on how long they expect that your so called "stress" "anxiety" or "depression" will be allowed to go on for before they actually do consider migraine treatment or decide that it has "resolved" to allow them to move on to look at other reasons for your symptoms.

Anyhow as well as contacting your local hospital for a list of neurologists who specialise in treating migraines so you can force a referral to someone who will treat through presenting a couple of names, the other option may be to call the doctor's bluff by saying something like "if you do think it's stress et al can you refer me to a psychologist for treatment".

The reason why you can now ask this is that since November 2006 under Australian Medicare patients who are considered to have a mental health condition can get up to 12 psychological sessions paid for per annumn. It does mean your GP having to draw up a mental health care plan of sorts which they may not want to go to the hassle, but it will increase the likelihood of you getting your neuro referral as that is far more straight forward.

Your GP may also state that you wouldn't be "eligible". However at least this will highlight that your GP is using your apparent "stress" as an excuse to not treat things. It will also help you to challenge why they aren't treating your migraine or looking into your other symptoms as they will not longer be able to get away with the "we won't do anything because it's only "stress"." Then they won't be able to justify refusing a referral to a neurologist especially if you have details of one on hand.