New Chronic Migraine Screening Tool Available to Help You Communicate Headache Symptoms and Their Impact
Jun 02, 2015
Jun 11, 2024
MigraineHealthyWomen's Copy Editor
Marcia Cronin has worked with HealthyWomen for over 15 years in various editorial capacities. She brings a strong background in copy editing. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in journalism and worked for over two decades in newspapers, including at The Los Angeles Times and The Virginian-Pilot.
After leaving newspapers, Marcia began working as a freelance writer and editor, specializing in health and medical news. She has copy edited books for Rodale, Reader's Digest, Andrews McMeel Publishing and the Academy of Nutritionists and Dietitians.
Marcia and her husband have two grown daughters and share a love of all things food- and travel-related.
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Do you have frequent headaches, so severe that they interfere with your work, school or other activities?1 Do you often take medications for your headaches?
If so, you may have chronic migraine and should talk to a specialist about your symptoms. Chronic migraine is a medical condition defined by 15 headache days per month, with each headache lasting four hours or more, and at least eight of those headache days being associated with migraine.2
Fortunately, the new ID-Chronic Migraine (ID-CM) screening tool is now available to help you communicate your headache symptoms and the impact these symptoms have on your daily life. Created by a team of headache experts, the chronic migraine screening tool asks questions about headache frequency, headache symptoms, medication use and more.3
After you complete the questionnaire, bring it to your health care professional to help guide your conversation. Once your health care professional determines whether you have chronic migraine, you can then begin a discussion about what treatment options are available to you.
To learn more about chronic migraine and to access the ID-CM screening tool, visit www.HealthyWomen.org/ChronicMigraineCenter. To find a headache specialist, check out the "Find a Specialist Tool" atwww.MyChronicMigraine.com.
1 Bigal ME, Serrano D, Reed M, Lipton RB. Chronic migraine in the population: burden, diagnosis, and satisfaction with treatment. Neurology. 2008;71(8):559-566.
2 Classification of Headache Disorders: 2nd edition. Cephalalgia. 2004;24(suppl 1):9-160.
3 Data on File, Allergan, Inc, 2014; Development and Validation of the ID-CM Screening Tool.