A typical chronic migraine patient

At EAN 2022, Gisela Terwindt, Professor of Neurology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, introduced herself and discussed patients with chronic migraine who have a headache almost every day, or at least 15−20 days per month. Such headache frequency can impact a patient’s quality of life and lead to depression and they may report how even their current acute and preventative medication does not work. As patients may not be referred to a specialty clinic until migraine disease has progressed, Professor Terwindt discussed how they, and primary healthcare providers, need to be educated on the risk factors for chronic migraine, including a vicious cycle of trying to take more and more medication to gain symptom relief, which can lead to medication overuse headache.