A new study found out that most people suffering from migraine have expressed about their physical pain in Twitter. This finding showed how technology and language have greatly affected how people share their physical and emotional sufferings through social media.
Researchers from the University Of Michigan School Of Dentistry, led by assistant professor and director of the Headache and Orofacial Pain Effort Division Alexander DaSilva, collaborated with 50 students and residents in categorizing more than 22,000 tweets.
After eliminating non-migraine related tweets, they examined key factors such as profanities, tweet times, locations and impact on productivity and mood.
The researchers found out that 65 percent of actual migraine sufferers tweeted about their pain with 74 percent of migraine tweets coming from women and 17 percent from men.
Migraine tweets peak globally during Mondays at 14:00 GMT, or 10 a.m Eastern Daylight Saving Time, with the United States accounting for 58 percent of migraine tweets, followed by Europe at 20 percent.
A total of 44 percent of tweets showed how migraine attacks immediately impacted and instantly triggered a person's mood swings.
Nearly 15 percent of researched tweets described migraines as "worst" and eight percent as "massive".
"It's the first known study to show the instant and broad impact of migraine attacks on modern patients' lives by decoding manually each one of their individual attack-related tweets.", DaSilva said in a press release.
The researchers also claimed that the results of the study reveal fresh information on how a person suffers and why he chooses Twitter to express his pain.
According to the Migraine Research Foundation, migraine is one of the most disabling neurological diseases in the world. It is often characterized by a severe recurring intense throbbing pain on one side of the head. It can be cured through over-the-counter medications or by seeking medical help from professionals.
This study was published in the April 3 issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
