(NewsUSA) – Allison Bickhardt started experiencing severe headaches when she was 18. At first, it was just a couple of times a month, but soon the headaches were happening more than half of the month. “I had never felt pain like that before,” Allison explained. “It was like I had a vise around my head.”

Allison reached her breaking point when she had to cancel her daughter’s fourth birthday party because of a debilitating headache. The disappointment in her daughter’s face when she learned that her birthday party had to be cancelled was devastating for Allison. After years and countless visits to her primary care physician, Allison decided to seek help from a headache specialist, who diagnosed her with chronic migraine — a condition defined as having a diagnosis of migraine and experiencing headaches on 15 or more days per month with headache lasting four hours a day or longer. 1,2,3

Rewrite Your Day Campaign

Allison is one of 3.2 million Americans impacted by chronic migraine.4,5 In order to raise awareness of the disabling symptoms and burden of the condition, the National Headache Foundation, HealthyWomen and Allergan, Inc. have partnered with celebrity event planner Mindy Weiss, on the Rewrite Your Day campaign. The initiative is giving 15 people living with chronic migraine the chance to relive a special moment in their life that they lost to the condition — symbolizing the 15 or more headache days a month experienced by people with Chronic Migraine.

To read about the Rewrite Your Day winners, learn about chronic migraine and find a headache specialist near you, visit www.RewriteYourDay.com.

1 Headache Classification Subcommittee of the International Headache Society. The International Classification of Headache Disorders: 2nd edition. Cephalalgia. 2004;24(suppl 1):9-160.

2 Olesen J, Bousser M-G, Diener H-C, et al. Headache Classification Committee. New appendix criteria open for a broader concept of chronic migraine. Cephalalgia. 2006;26(6):742-746.

3 Manack A, Turkel C, Silberstein S. The evolution of chronic migraine: classification and nomenclature. Headache. 2009;49(8):1206-1213.

4 Natoli JL, et al. Global Prevalence of Chronic Migraine: A Systematic Review. Cephalalgia. 2010;30(5):599-609.

5 Population Projections, United States, 2004-2030, by state, age and sex, on CDC WONDER On-line Database, September 2005. U.S. population estimates: 18+ years of age (n=234,504,070). Available at http://wonder.cdc.gov/population-projections.html. Last accessed May 26, 2011.

APC88RE12