Revered Boston Red Sox pitcher Jonathan Papelbon is a rare athlete willing to admit how debilitating a migraine episode is. Most athletes say they push through it, fueling the public’s perception that a migraine is “just a headache” — and that migraineurs are whiners. Papelbon said:
“They don’t go away,” he said. “You can usually feel the effects of them the day after, the aftereffects. But it’s hereditary, they don’t go away.
It’s just something that I’m going to have to deal with. It’s not just a headache, it takes over your whole body. People that don’t get them, they don’t really understand them.”
Papelbon later says that he is able to push through a migraine — only after he has taken the migraine abortive Imitrex. It seems like a small thing, but “tough guys” admitting the agony of migraine helps spread the word that it is a serious disorder.