If you’ve ever experienced a migraine, you will undoubtedly know about it, and if you haven’t – count yourself very lucky.

Migraine is defined by the NHS as a ‘moderate or severe headache, felt as a throbbing pain on one side of the head’, and as any migraineur knows, the experience is brutal. Migraine is a complex neurological condition that affects more women than men, and that can manifest itself in a variety of ways.

Migraine can be ‘with aura’ – an aura being the body’s way of pre-warning you of an incoming attack. In basic terms – baton the hatches, find a dark room and pop those pills. An aura can be a visual disruption (read partial blindness, zig zag lines, flashing lights), or other warning symptoms such as fatigue, irritability, numbness, tingling or a sense of feeling ‘outer body’. Alternatively in other cases, the migraine can hit with no warning. Migraines can last from hours to days, and are often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and an intense sensitivity to light and sound. Read more about the different types of migraine here.

The most unlucky sufferers can experience attacks so frequently that they are labelled ‘chronic’ – meaning they experience attacks more than 15 days a month. There is no reliable ‘cure’ for migraine – but there are both medications and lifestyle steps you can take to try and control the condition.