Did you know? It's Migraine Awareness Week

Volunteers model the new NMC
vests outside the centre's iconic front door

If you suffer from migraine, you are aware of it all the time. But for the rest of you, now might be the time to think about it in Migraine Awareness Week. To mark the week, the fantastic National Migraine Centre (NMC), of which I have the privilege of being Vice Chair, has launched a campaign to enlist sports enthusiasts to raise funds for the centre. To give any volunteers a boost, the centre has commissioned fab vests (see above) that are available and jolly natty they are too. If you are interested in doing a run or cycle or any athletic endeavour to enable advances in your own care or that of someone you know and love, please contact the centre.

Migraine is a very serious and, for some, crippling condition that can strike at any time, put life on hold and leave sufferers cut off and desperate for treatment. The NMC leads the world in the development of treatment for the condition, pioneering ground-breaking research into new techniques such as the centre's Medical Director, Dr Giles Elrington, leading on the use of botox which was recently covered in the national press. I recently participated in a hypnotherapy treatment group at the centre, which I found very useful. Getting to know some of my fellow sufferers during the program really brought it home to me just how hard life can be for those with severe symptoms.

We need people to understand how serious migraines can be and also how varied and life-enhancing breakthroughs in treatment are for some of us, with a desperate need for more research into other forms of the condition. We know a great deal more about migraine than we used to but, like the brain itself, many questions still go unanswered. The NMC is the place where those questions are being asked. Please support us in doing more.