Hospitalization may be able to help people who suffer from serious and chronic migraines, relieve their pain and return to a normal life, a non-profit organization said yesterday.
The Taiwan Headache Society launched the "Migraine Day of Action" campaign two days ahead of its European counterparts to promote better public understanding of migraines.
Society chairman Wang Shu-chun (
The WHO also regards the illness as one of the major factors affecting people's work productivity, he said.
"We would like people to know that migraines are very common; even famous people like Elvis Presley and Claude-Oscar Monet suffered from them," Wang said.
"But, it can be treated," he said.
According to Wang, who is also a neurologist at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, people who suffer frequent migraines and do not respond to normal pain-killers can receive medication primarily used to treat high blood pressure, nausea, depression and epilepsy.
He said at least half of the pain his patients suffered was reduced after they took these treatment for three to six months.
For those who do not respond well to oral medication, hospitalization is another alternative, Fu Chung-ling (
"Most people do not understand why migraine patients should be hospitalized, but many people who suffer from chronic headaches, over-dependence on pain-killers and serious migraines, need to check in to hospitals," she said at the conference.
She said hospitalized patients are placed on 24-hour intravenous drips to "stabilize" their body's chemical balance.
She said 63 percent of the 135 hospitalized migraine patients in the veteran hospital in 2000 had their their migraines completely eradicated.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift