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Carole King: Excruciating migraines last four days

Carole King, 55, has been with Sean, her partner, for 18 years but she dare not plan their wedding, although he has proposed.

"How can I," she asks, "when I could wake up on my wedding day with a migraine and the whole thing would have to be cancelled? I'm too scared to risk that."

the mother of four grown-up children- three sons and a daughter- and grandmother of ten, had her first migraine when she was six.

Now in her 50s,, she experiences attacks on at least 15 days a month, each one lasting around four days.

Carole, from Herne Bay in Kent, says: "They can come on at any ime and the disruption they cause is enormous. Sometimes I can be in the car driving and have a struggle to get home. My head goes fuzzy and my speech gets slurred.

"I can't make friends because if I arrange things with other people, I continually have to let them down and they start thinking you're not bothered. People just don't understand what having a migraine is like.

"They think it's only a bad headache and simply don't have any concept of the terrific pain you're in. On two occasions it has been so bad I've been admitted to hospital.

"The pain at the back of my eyes gets so intense I want to rip them out. An attack can last four days, with me being sick the whole time. Funnily enough, when I retch it can ease the pain for a few seconds.

"Having a migraine is such a horrible experience you'd do anything to stop it and you just wish you weren't alive.

"My migraines come in a black of four to five days.. then I have four to five days without one. Sometimes one will wake me up at 2am.

"The pain is so excruciating I can hardly bear to lift my head off the pillow. I take a tablet immediately and then make a hot-water bottle because I find putting that on my neck and then my head is soothing. I can't believe I'm now 55 and still suffering from them. Some women find theirs get better with the menopause but mine have got worse. I cry silent tears, because this makes me feel so low."

Carole adds: "This illness has played havoc with my working life. When I was young and working in a department store, I was always having to go and lie down in the rest room, and didn't know how I would manage to get home and was often sick on the bus. My colleagues didn't understand and because of my age thought I was hung over."

It was after she was taken to Canterbury Hospital that Carole was put on Sumatriptan. She was 37.

"As long as I take a tablet when a migraine is coming, it will help ease it. I carry my tablets with me all the time.

"The big trouble with this illness is that it spoils so many things and gets on other people's nerves. My ex-husband got irritated if I had to go home because an attack was coming on. Sean, however, is very understanding, but other people don't have any concept of how debilitating a migraine can be. It is hard for them to understand that you can be the life off soul of the party one day but be disabled and unable to work the next.

"Doctors also need to be more understanding. Mine has suggested I'm taking too many tablets and so, because I'm terrified he won't prescribe as many in future, I've ordered some off the internet to ensure I have back up. If I didn't have any medication, I simply wouldn't be able to live my life.

"Migraine is such a lonely place that it is good to know that people are now taking the time to conduct research into it. There's nothing worse than a life of migraines. I really hopw a cure can be found so that others don't have to go through this hell."

Do you suffer form migraines? Got something to say? 

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