(BPT) - Content sponsored and provided by Pfizer. Bernadette Gorczyca has partnered with Pfizer to share her experience living with migraine.
For Bernadette Gorczyca - a teacher of 13 years - migraine has been a part of her life since she was a young child. While she's no longer a classroom teacher due to her severe migraine disease, Gorczyca is still passionate about education and has carried that passion into teaching others about migraine.
'It took nearly 30 years of living with migraine, multiple misdiagnoses and a lot of self-advocacy to finally understand that migraine is a neurological disease that needs to be treated or it can continue to progress,' says Gorczyca. 'Now, it's my personal mission to help others find their voice so they can help themselves and those around them. Whether you're a teacher like I was, a student, or someone who hasn't been in a classroom in decades, it's so important to understand the impact of migraine on an individual.'
Gorczyca's journey with migraine started when she was just five years old. She first experienced abdominal migraine, a form of migraine with episodes of abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. Then in middle school, she began experiencing migraine pain in her head. By the time she reached high school, she was experiencing frequent, severe migraine attacks. After being misdiagnosed for years, Gorczyca began to think that migraine attacks were a normal part of life and she only focused on treating each individual attack. After experiencing a long-lasting, severe attack when she was 33, she desperately began researching everything she could about migraine and finally understood how important a migraine management plan could be in reclaiming her life.
Here are three reasons why Gorczyca believes migraine education is so important.
1. The stigma associated with migraine often becomes a barrier to treatment. Less than half of people with migraine seek care from a doctor for migraine.[1] Gorczyca notes that stigma may help explain this. 'People often feel like migraine attacks are their fault because they do not understand that migraine is a neurological disease that impacts the entire body. The language we use contributes to the stigma, too. For example, when we refer to the disease as 'migraines," people then think of migraine as a condition that comes and goes, rather than realizing that it's a lifelong, complex neurological disease that the brain is always navigating. This was the main reason I didn't start preventive treatment until I was in my thirties, even though I had been living with migraine since I was a child.'
2. People struggling with migraine should know they aren't alone. 'I want those with migraine to know there is a large community of people with migraine out there. While everyone's experience with migraine is different, we are here to support each other. My treatment plan and the ways I treat my migraine - what I call my 'migraine treatment toolbox' - grew exponentially after finding the migraine community. There are great patient advocacy resources and social media groups where people with migraine can get more information or join the community,' says Gorczyca.
3. People require individualized migraine management plans. 'My goal is to help people understand that migraine is a disease and there are treatment options available. People who experience migraine can work with their doctor - particularly a neurologist or headache specialist - to develop a treatment plan to help get their migraine under control,' she says. Every person is different, and there's no one migraine treatment that works for everyone. In fact, Gorczyca, like many people with migraine, relies on a migraine treatment toolbox to manage her migraine symptoms. 'For me personally, I use a combination of treatment approaches in my preventive and acute migraine management plan.'
'Migraine is a lifelong disease and becoming educated about it changed my life,' says Gorczyca. 'I have been able to take steps to find the right treatment to help my migraine symptoms so I can get back to doing the things I love and embrace my life instead of having to retreat from it.'
To learn more about migraine, visit Pfizer.com.
Bernadette Gorczyca is a person with migraine and patient advocate who takes a biopsychosocial approach to managing migraine disease. She can be found on Instagram @ChronicAccounts. Views or opinions expressed on @ChronicAccounts are those of Bernadette Gorczyca and do not represent the views or opinions of Pfizer.
- Parikh, S.K., Kempner, J. & Young, W.B. Stigma and Migraine: Developing Effective Interventions. Curr Pain Headache Rep 25, 75 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-021-00982-z
