Amplifying the Voice of the Chronic Migraine Community

What Is Chronic Migraine?

The International Headache Society defines chronic migraine as headache occurring on 15 or more days per month for more than three months, where at least 8 of those headache days have migraine features:

• The pain is moderate or severe and often intense.
• The pain may be on one side or the head or both.
• The head pain causes a throbbing, pounding or pulsating sensation.
• The pain gets worse with physical activity or movement.
• The patient must have nausea, vomiting, and/or light and sound sensitivity along with the head pain.

The other headache days don’t need to be full migraine attacks. For example, if you have a migraine attack with a severe headache on day one and take medication but still have a low-level headache on day two, that would be one day of migraine headache and one day of other headache.