‘I usually end up calling an ambulance’: why migraine pain is not just a bad headache

The neurological disease affects up to 20% of people, but research funding is sorely lacking. Women are more than three times likely to suffer from it than men

My first experience with migraine was when I was a child, pressing a flannel to my mum's head and bringing her a bucket to vomit in, stroking her head as she lay still on her bed in the dark in excruciating pain. These memories are so clear to me decades later because they were so unusual. My mum never stops and barely sleeps, so seeing her so wiped out by migraine was frightening.

At first, mine were similar to hers. A sudden onset of blinding, stabbing pain on one side of my head, an overwhelming nausea, eventual forceful vomiting, dehydration, intolerance of light, exhaustion and fatigue. But while the frequency of Mum's migraines have waned over the years - and her symptoms, although debilitating, have remained similar - mine have changed, and become worse.