How to get help with your migraine

Here’s who can help you

You don’t have to deal with your migraine alone.

There are people who can help you.

They can help you when you are having a migraine attack.

They can also help you manage your migraine.

Here’s how.

Your mum, dad and carer can help you

• Depending on where you are, they could help you by finding you somewhere to sit or lie down. They could close the curtains and make sure that where you are is quiet.
• Or they could collect you and bring you home if you are well enough to travel.
• They could get you something to eat and drink if you are hungry or thirsty.
• If you need it, they can give you medication for your migraine.

• They can help you understand your migraine. This can be by helping you work out if you have any migraine triggers, the type of migraine you have, how long your migraine attacks are and how often you get them.
• They can then help you manage your migraine by trying to avoid certain triggers (such as making sure that you have enough water to drink if being dehydrated gives you a migraine) or preparing you for when you have migraine attacks.
• They can talk to you about your migraine and how you feel about it.
• They can also help you explain your migraine to other people so that they can help you. This could be telling your school about your migraine and how it can help you manage it. It can also be by taking you to a doctor to see what is the best way to manage your migraine.

Your school can help you

• They can help you feel as comfortable as possible when you are having a migraine attack. This could be by finding you somewhere to sit or lie down at school or by arranging for you to go home if you need to.
• If you take medication for your migraine, they can give it to you, but your mum, dad or carers will need to speak to them about this first and agree a plan.

• Depending on your migraine and its triggers, there might be some things that your school can do to help avoid certain triggers (such as allowing you to have a bottle of water on your desk if being dehydrated gives you a migraine).
• Your school can help if your migraine means that you have missed a lot of lesson time or if it makes it harder to do school work and study. This help could be materials to catch up on work missed, extra tuition, and sometimes more time to do assessments.
• Your school can also help you tell other students in your school about migraine if you think they don’t understand it properly.

Do you need help telling them?

It’s not always easy to explain your migraine to other people. Here’s how you can explain migraine to other people and how it affects you – click here.