"Not tonight darling, I have a migraine!"
".
This disease is often perceived as exclusively female.
Nothing could be more false.
“
When my son started complaining of stomach aches around the age of 7-8
, I didn't think about migraines.
When, the following year, he mentioned headaches, I sent him to the ophthalmologist, who detected nothing… However, I am a migraine sufferer, my mother and my sister too.
But precisely, for me, it was a typically female disease.
I never would have thought that it could concern men
,”
says Annie.
However, contrary to what this mother thought but also many of us, men are not spared by this chronic pathology.
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Before puberty, there is even gender equality in the face of illness.
"
Of the 5 to 10
% of children concerned, there are as many little boys as little girls
",
specifies Dr. Michel Lantéri-Minet, neurologist at the University Hospital of Nice.
After the age of 15, parity disappears.
Thus, of the 12.5% of French people who suffer from migraine, two thirds are women and one third are men.
It is during puberty that everything changes.
Many boys will then see their migraines improve or disappear.
At the same time, under the influence of hormones, the number of girls with migraine will increase.
Men prefer to silence their disease
“
Migraine is a disease characterized by neuronal excitability linked to a complex genetic background.
Female hormones reinforce this excitability
,”
explains Dr. Lantéri-Minet.
This is why many women suffering from migraine have attacks related to the menstrual cycle.
For some, these ailments are strictly hormone-dependent.
In them, the attacks occur only during menstruation (these are called catamenial migraines) and disappear during pregnancy and with menopause.
"
It is this form of migraine that gives a very feminine view of the disease
",
emphasizes Dr. Lantéri-Minet.
We can even say that, for years, migraine was considered a "good woman's disease".
In my previous position, I dared not talk about it, even with my female colleagues who said they were migraine sufferers.
Baptiste, 30-something executive in a bank
Moreover, if women sometimes find it difficult to talk about their disease, men often prefer to keep it quiet.
“
In my previous job, I didn't dare talk about it, even with my female colleagues who said they were migraine sufferers.
When people pointed out my pallor or the fact that I looked next to my pumps, I pretended to have partied, to have a hangover... It may not have been serious, but, for me , it was easier to say.
I changed company and my new boss evokes his migraines very naturally.
Which allowed me to talk about my own
”,
says Baptiste, a thirty-year-old bank executive.
Because, man or woman, it is the young adults who pay the heaviest price for the migraine disease.
Crises almost always begin before the age of 35.
Then they will evolve throughout life with periods of improvement or worsening.
Then, from the age of fifty, the frequency and severity of seizures may decrease or even disappear.
“
Only 10
% of our patients are over 65
years old.
They often suffer from a severe illness with drug abuse
,”
says Dr. Lantéri-Minet.
But even among older women, more women than men complain of migraine.
matter of rhythm
Migraines in men are more often linked to changes in rhythm, whether in their personal or professional activities (weekend or vacation migraine), their sleep (lack or excess of sleep) or even their meals. .
.
.
In addition, it seems that men, who suffer from migraines less often, have severe migraines that become chronic less frequently than women.