A 26-year-old young woman committed suicide in 2021, unable to cope with too expensive treatment for chronic migraines from which she had suffered since childhood.
Marine, a young woman aged 26, ended her life in November 2021, exhausted by chronic migraines and a tormented course of care, reports The Parisian.
Her migraines started when she was 8 years old and were related to her adenomyosis, a form of endometriosis. Her husband Nicolas tells Le Parisien about “the daily impact of migraines, their disabling side”. “We had to anticipate everything. For example, it regularly happened that we canceled our visit to our loved ones a few hours before, either because she had suffered from a bad migraine the day before, and had to rest, or because she had some news,” he explains.
According to the Inserm medical research institute, migraine affects around 15% of the world’s population, with a predominance in women. “It is estimated that 1 to 2% of the general population have migraines occurring more than 15 days per month for at least three months”, or chronic migraine, specifies Inserm on his website.
A clinical trial for one year
Supported by Professor Anne Ducros, neurologist at Montpellier University Hospital, Marine entered a clinical trial in 2020 for a treatment that divides her number of migraines “by two, even three”, according to Nicolas.
“For a year, she was able to live normally. We were able to go out again, she resumed her work. She was more fulfilled, I found my wife. She was not the same person,” says her husband.
Then the clinical trial stopped and Marine found herself without “any solution”, according to the president of the association La Voix des migraineurs, Sabine Debremaeker, who also collected Nicolas’ testimony. “It was a descent into hell,” she tells BFMTV. “The medicine was available in neighboring countries at a price of 500 euros,” emphasizes Sabine Debremaeker. A cost too high for Marine, who applied for financial assistance from Health Insurance, which was refused in October 2021.
Questioned in the Senate in October 2022 on the non-reimbursement of migraine treatments, including the one tested by Marine, the Ministry of Health responded that discussions with the laboratories using these treatments had not been successful “due to the extremely high pricing claims of manufacturers, in view of expenses currently incurred for the drug treatment of migraine.
An “obstacle course”
The young woman committed suicide two weeks after the response from Health Insurance. “It was a Friday, she worked normally in the morning… We had to go see our loved ones in the evening. The day before, she told me that it was complicated financially. It was going to be complicated in the future, because we were drawing on our savings, but in the immediate future, things were going well,” Nicolas recalled to Le Parisien.
“I can understand his gesture, but a lot of questions remain. We didn’t get a letter, nothing,” he adds.
The neurologist who followed Marine, Professor Anne Ducros, says she “understands” her gesture. “I see dozens of people who, unfortunately, have the same thing and who tell me: ‘sometimes, I would prefer to be dead'”, she told BFMTV: “it drives me crazy”. According to a survey conducted by La Voix des migraineurs in 2022, 36.2% of patients suffering from migraines describe their care journey as an “obstacle course” and 21.1% as a “quest for the Grail”.