Chronic Migraine Awareness

Are you aware?

Getting to know CMA’s COO & VP; Nancy’s Story

Nancy Harris Bonk, the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Chronic Migraine Awareness, Inc, is a patient leader and educator who has been helping those living with migraine disease since 2003. She developed episodic migraine disease during puberty. Then, in December 1996, Nancy slipped and fell on a patch of black ice in her driveway and sustained a traumatic brain injury. This fall triggered unrelenting head and neck pain and chronic migraine attacks. Nancy also lives with hypothyroidism, depression, anxiety, idiopathic intracranial hypertension, fibromyalgia, Sjogren’s Syndrome and mixed connective tissue disease.

While searching for support, Nancy found the About.com (now Remedy Health) migraine discussion forum in 2003. Through her years in this space she has been a moderator and Health Guide and Community Manager at Remedy Health, a contributor/moderator for Migraine.com, and a U.S Pain Foundation Ambassador. In April 2011, she founded the Western New York Migraine and Headache Disorder Support Group, the first local in person migraine and headache disorder support group in Buffalo, N.Y.

Nancy has been nominated for several awards including Wego’s 2012 ‘Unsung Hero’, ‘Health Activist Hero’ and ‘Best is Show; Facebook’. She was also a Top Ten Social Health Media Makers in headache and migraine and nominated for the National Headache Foundation’s Headache Hero Patient Advocate.
She has also shared her message through media interviews, including NPR’s 51 ½ %, Spectrum News and Biohaven’s ‘Demand More’ campaign. Nancy is a member of the Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy Board of Directors, the National Headache Foundation’s Patient Leadership Council, Coalition for Headache and Migraine Patients (CHAMP), and Education Council for Headache Online.

Nancy lives in Albany, N.Y. When she is not advocating for people with headache diseases, she enjoys baking, quilting and spending time with family.