Former Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis has had migraine attacks for most of his life, according to an interview he gave People magazine.
In the interview, Davis recalled experiencing a migraine attack during the 1998 Super Bowl: Just before running onto the field, Davis realized he’d forgotten to take his preventive medication. He quickly swallowed the capsule, but it was too late. A migraine attack crept up and benched Davis for the second quarter of the game. Nonetheless, he did end up playing during the second half of the game — so well that he earned the most valuable player title.
Having had this attack in such a public forum, Davis realized he could use his own experience with migraine to help others with the disease. Indeed, most of the fan mail he received after the game was from people thanking him for openly talking about migraine.
Davis mentioned his migraine again during his induction speech into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, telling the audience how he put up with nausea, headache, and temporary blindness as a 9-year-old so that he could continue to play football.
According to the People interview, it took Davis years to find a migraine treatment that worked for him. He now uses a combination of preventive medication, healthy diet, and CBD to keep migraine attacks at bay. (Anecdotally, CBD may be helpful for treating nausea associated with migraine, but there’s very little research supporting this or other uses of CBD in the treatment of migraine.)
About three times as many women as men have migraine, a fact that may lead some men to be reluctant to disclose they have it, too.
“It’s one of those things men are not comfortable talking about,” Davis said onstage at the 2019 Migraine World Summit. “I see more guys talking about it now, but it’s not a lot. It wasn’t until I was retired that guys would say, ‘I went through it, too.’ I was like, ‘Why didn’t you say anything back then?’ If you have migraines, it’s okay to talk about it.”