A mum has shared how she’s suffered with chronic migraines for the last 31 years – after first collapsing from a ‘horrific’ pain in her head at the age of 21.
Following this first incident, Kerry Spalding, 51, experienced bouts of attacks – sometimes leaving her bed-bound for six weeks.
She’d also lose her vision, feel nauseous and experience photophobia – an extreme fear of light.
Kerry has previously been forced to lock herself away in the bedroom away from her kids – Harvey, 17, and Amelia, six – as well as her husband, Richard, due to the pain.
The hair stylist, from Hinckley, Leicestershire, said: ‘I experience extreme photophobia. I spent three days being in the dark without anyone talking to me.
‘If anyone talks it’s like a stabbing needle going through my head. It’s terrible.
‘I finally come out of a really long bout and my kids have gown three inches. It’s very depressing and isolating.
‘You can’t even sit in the garden.’
Kerry says there are three phases to these attacks: the premonitory stage where she will get food cravings for carbs, sugar and fatty foods, the attack phase where she will experiences all her symptoms and then the hangover phase.
‘Sometimes the hangover phase is the most frustrating,’ she added.
‘It’s mild levels of pain and you become homebound. Everything will still be a huge trigger so you have to rest to reduce symptoms.’
Alongside these chronic migraines (where a person suffers from headaches at least 15 days per month and eight of these with migraine symptoms), the 51-year-old also has menstrual migraines (which coincide with her cycle), vestibular migraine (which affects vertigo)and abdominal migraines (which can make her sick).
Her drastic symptoms have resulted in her giving up her hair salon and now only working once a week as a stylist.
It’s only recently that she’s managed to find treatments to ease the attacks.
Two years ago, she ‘begged’ to be given anti CGRP – which reduced her migraine from 25 days a month to 10 bed-bound.
Now with a combination of oestrogen and nerve block injections, they have reduced to five days a month and have eased her vertigo symptoms – allowing her to get out and about more.
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