I couldn't live with the agony of migraines any more but my GP called me dramatic

Warning: This article contains details of mental health struggles including references to suicide

When Lauren Evans told her doctor she was suicidal because of the "pure agony" of her chronic migraine, she was told she was being dramatic.

Lauren, 29, was seven when she got her first migraine and went on to have them regularly - by the time she was 24, they were happening every day.

"People need to understand that a migraine is a full body experience," she said.

Migraines are often misunderstood as "just a headache" despite being a neurological condition that can leave people unable to work, socialise or function in everyday life, according to a migraine expert.

The Welsh government said it was working to improve access to neurological services.

Lauren, from Swansea, said: "Although the 'headache' is in the head it can affect body temperature, digestive system, speech, light sensitivity, limb numbness, ability to walk and carry out a journey, brain fog, sleep, neck pain, mood swings, visual aura, sound sensitivity, cravings, vertigo.

"I would wake up daily either in pain or worried about when it would start."

She also spent a huge amount of time researching triggers and spent "hundreds on various things just to see if that would help" - from vitamins to chiropractors.

Lauren was training to become a biomedical scientist in the NHS but the lights and overstimulation of Singleton Hospital were so intense she had daily migraines.

She added that she often felt dismissed by colleagues who implied she was faking her condition but was lucky that her manager was supportive.

Some colleagues would accommodate her by turning off the lights, she said, but others said: "If you don't get your annual leave approved, you can just say you've got a migraine and you won't come in."

She continued: "That was so untrue. So you're battling, not just your physical health, you're battling all the mental side that comes with it as well.

"If I went home every day at the sight of a migraine, I would never be in work. There wasn't a day without pain and if there was, I'd be waiting for it."