One in seven people suffer from migraines, ranging from “nuisance” headaches to a debilitating condition that one UK lawyer said was “protected by law as a disability.”   Yet more than one third of migraine sufferers claim to have experienced discrimination at work due to employers failing to make reasonable workplace adjustments.

The Migraine Trust, “the health and medical research charity for migraine in the United Kingdom,” conducted a survey and found that almost one half of migraine sufferers said that  they were unfairly treated at work because of the absences that their condition required them to take. Moreover, 30% claimed to have been disciplined as result of their condition, with 21.7% having been fired because of it.  Perhaps 25 million days are lost yearly in the UK from work or school because of such absences.  

The Migraine Trust’s free Employment Advocacy Toolkit is a good resource for both migraine sufferers, and management and HR departments.