this is bbc world news. the headlines. iran has denied its involvement in the sinking of two oil tankers on monday. the us has released video it says confirms iran's appointment. the world health organisation says the ebola outbreak in the democratic public of congo is not a world a —— global health emergency. women across oakland have taken to the streets to emergency. women across oakland have ta ken to the streets to protest against what they say if the country's slow pace towards equality. demonstrations are played of the government headquarters in

burnet. pope francis has told energy executives urgent action —— effort is needed to stem the progress of the boring. —— of global warming. and now all bbc news, how back in a migraine get? how close are we to a cure? news beat reporter meets some of the thousands of sufferers and the scientists trying to help them. i'm going to go lay down. nearly 200,000 people in the uk will experience a migraine today. if you are not in a safe environment when you're having a migraine, it really is one of the worst scenarios you can probably get yourself in. at some point in our lives, one in seven of us will have a migraine attack. the best way i can describe it is it is the worst hangover you've ever had times ten. for those who suffer the most, their migraines can completely

take over their lives. people are like, "only you coming back into work when you are feeling better," but what if you never really feel better? everyone will know someone who has a migraine, and usually it runs in families. but despite being so common, there is still no cure. a headache isjust a little bit of pain, whereas for me and a lot of people, a migraine is visual disturbances, pins and needles, vomiting. it's so much more than a headache. i work in a school as a teacher's assistant. before that, i was an english teacher in japan. i don't remember a time when i didn't have migraines. i've already had so many days off, and they didn't really understand at the beginning. i literally was there and said i would not go when i could feel one coming on, i said i will see if i can stick it out

for as long as i can. i was in so much pain, they carried me to a room and i was vomiting and shaking. i was happy that they could see what it is for what it was. when people say they have a sore head, that usually means a tension type of headache which can be treated with painkillers. a migraine, though, is something different. a severe throbbing at the side of the head that can last for hours or days, and it comes with a range of other symptoms, like a sensitivity to light, sound and smells. the headache during a migraine also gets worse with movement. so, it's been a couple of weeks since we first met nathan, and we are just going to check up on him and see how he has been getting on and how he is handling his migraines. hi. nice to see you again. i'm good. not too bad. how have you been feeling?

the last few days have been really hard. today has been really good. and what about work? you're not in the classroom today, so what has been going on? i had to leave myjob. it's been quite hard. i was getting migraines so frequently and the was so high that it was just not fair on the school, the children i was working with, myself really. you're here today, and what will you be doing? today, i'm going to sign on and hopefully get some help for something new. maybe get something a bit easier for myself. something i can actually put more time and effort into. how are you feeling about not being able to be a teacher any more? it's quite sad, really. teaching is one of my passions. and i don't like having to leave where i was and all the relations

i'd built because of my health. it's not ideal. so, you have a few forms to fill in and we'll see how it goes? ok, good luck. see you later, cheers. so, nathan's migraines are pretty bad. he is a chronic sufferer, getting about 15 or 20 headaches a month. we wanted to see what is more typical, so we're going to meet alice. she gets what is known as episodic migraines, a couple of headache days a month. this is my office. this is where i film all my videos. alice is a graphic designer and youtuber. she has talked about migraines before. a lotof people say it is just a headache, and that's my biggest pet peeve in the world. today, she's doing a shopping haul. hey, guys, it's alice again, so today i'm actually

going to do a report. what has yourjourney with migraines been? i think i was about nine or ten, and they gradually got worse as i went through secondary school. the stress of gcses played a part in it, too. i really hope it looks nice. i'll try it on. i did a video on my migraine experience, and that was like at the peak of them being really bad. so, i'm going to do another one soon, i think i'm updating that original video. it's been really interesting to hear feedback on how they all felt, experiences with them, that i'm not alone. it's a common problem. people said that i get this and did not realise i get this. i did not realise how much it affects my mum. comments of people coming together as a community and understanding

that a migraine is not just a headache. i would love to hear from you in the comments, but thanks so much for watching this video. i hope you enjoyed it and i will see you very soon for another one. bye. done! migraines are very common. they affect one is seven of the population, with women being much more prone to them. so, one in four women have migraines, which is a lot. often it does start in teenage years, but people can have it when they are quite young. so, i think the youngest we have it treated is four years old, which seems really young to have a migraine. but the most common time for it to start is actually in people's 20s, 20s or 30s, when they are busy working. it starts to really affect their lives. we are waiting on nathan. he texted that he had a migraine overnight and yesterday.

so, he should be ok and he will come, but it's a shame, i feel bad about asking him here, but i'm sure he is up for it. even though it does not help his migraines, nathan loves his motorbike so much, he doesn't want to give it up. hello. how are you? i'm all right. not feeling too great today? well, not 100%. the last few days have been pretty hard. last night, yesterday, the day before, day before that, just zonked. hopefully today, it backs down, that is the plan. so, we are going to do that, then? yeah. follow the light blue one, it should be easier. do you find this is an activity you can do quite well despite not feeling very well very often?

i find it because you control how much you move your body or your head, you can go as slow as you need to. it is not going to jar your body too much which makes it easier for me. and that is one thing about migraines, isn't it? almost. ok, that's... you demonstrate, you are better than i am, i will ask the questions. yes, so this is a sport that you can easily do with the migraine and manage it, not too strenuous. you don't have to move your head too much. you just kind of go at your own pace. impact makes a really big difference. like running sports. if i'm coming off a migraine, i will have a migraine, it's really difficult, so i don't think i would be able to do it. do you think your migraines are affecting your mental health? yeah, i would say it has, to be honest. when you are always in your own space in a dark room in pain, you kind of do feel a certain way.

like, it puts you in a dark place, and obviously you are in pain. the feeling that no one understands you. like, the loneliness of it. you kind of feel isolated as well, so it is a whole cluster of things, so it does not really help anything. it's just not nice. have you felt depressed at all? when i'm in that dark space, depression is definitely one of the things i feel. i think i'm lucky in a way because i can sometimes pull myself out of it, so when i come off a migraine, i'm feeling a little bit better, i try to keep as positive as i can and try and get out. i tried my hardest today. even though i'm feeling really tired and fatigued and a bit dizzy. but it is just to keep positive and keep pushing yourself, otherwise you are just going to remain in the same place and just remain stagnant and that is not where you want to be.

because then you get yourself stuck in a hole which you cannot pull out of. help me go as far as i go because this is my last attempt. i will definitely help. it is all in the toe, all in the toe. do you know this is actually really hard and i'm really impressed nathan can do this on the back of a migraine. i think this is as far as i'm going to get, though. i have come to meet emer. until 18 month ago, she was working as a civil servant in central london. nice to see you. how are you? as her chronic migraines got worse, she made the decision to change her career. this is your home, where you work?

this is my office and that is my office over there for the time being. so, i got the laptop set up and everything. so, what is it that you are doing now? i am a freelance writer. that is the easiest way to describe it but i'm doing a couple of different things. i'm ghostwriting for people's memoirs, and i am also working for a cv consultancy companies, helping people with their cvs. and just kind of came to the point where i realised that i had to kind of fit my working life around my migraines because they are just so unpredictable that i need this flexibility now to kind of get up and decide how much i can do on any given day. currently saturday morning. instead of doing normal weekend stuff, i woke up with the worst pain on the right side of my head, just so sore, i feel so sick. and this is probably going to be me for the rest of the day. just lying here waiting for the pain to be over. the biggest thing for me

is kind of managing my so obviously i was always very ambitious, but i have had to kind of learn to redirect that ambition because the harder i was working, the more unwell i was becoming. it is about being realistic, but also a little bit optimistic as well. when she gets migraines, she will take over—the—counter medicines. she is also taking vitamins and supplements every day to try and help. none of them really work. alice has had better luck, though. they are so much better than they were. i started then when i was like nine, and now it is the best it has been since i can remember. and it is probably down to the fact that i am now not as stressed. my mum actually spoke to the doctors, and we found a correlation between my anxiety and my migraines. stress is all linked in with that, so we spoke to my doctor and he gave me anxiety medicine

and ever since then, it has seemed to calm down a little bit. i began taking that towards the end of university, and the frequency of my migraines completely slowed down. so that has helped a lot, which has been nice. and i have learnt a lot better if being aware of and making sure i have my water bottle with me and making sure i am eating at the right time. was there a big time where you seem to have more migraines? probably 10 or 11, i was having up to like five migraines a month and actually through one of my exam period i had two in one week so i was trying to take my exams while physically not being able to see because i get visual disturbances and stuff.

so stress from uni triggered them again. so yeah, it is definitely kind of situational based. i have to be very aware of my stress levels now and the fact that it affected my education as well i think shows that it is notjust a headache like some people think and it does affect people a lot. i can feel a migraine starting to come on. so these are my ice packs. today i have chosen to lie down with my ice pack, just taken some medicine. so i'm going to lie down. before it gets worse. and i can't do anything. there is not really a cure for a migraine unfortunately. we will never get rid of them altogether. regarding things that have been directly made for migraine, they isn't very much out there. they were the first real targeted painkiller for migraines, but regarding preventive medication, until very recently, there has not been anything made

for migraines specifically, we tend to borrow things from other areas of medicine, heart medication and anxiety medication, epilepsy a lot. and those is a one in four chance of any of them will work, so it can feel quite frustrating for people. they feel a bit like they are just trying this and try that and nothing is working. when you get as many migraines as emer, even basic day—to—day tasks can be a worry. living in constant fear of coming into contact with known triggers. noise, smells, lights, anything kind of flashing, like somebody spraying something, or smoke, all sorts of different things. they can really trigger it. travel is unpredictable anyway, so it is an element that is always a thing i think

about before i go anywhere really. normally ijust feel quite nauseous when i am quite nauseous when i am on a train anyway so that kind of can make it worse sometimes. she has brought something today because as she has found something she finds helps her migraines. i will take that for you. ok, good luck. what kind of temperature? 0k, well... feels good. not too bad. it is very cold initially. that is usually the only thing you can pay attention to after you start swimming, you just start to get this buzz and you feel really relaxed and that feeling kind of carries over for the next few days, you feel kind of chilled out and relax. this is the place i come to kind of reset and start afresh again and just get a bit of a break from all the pain. you know, how you feel and whether or not you are stressed out or relaxed can really

have an impact on your migraines so this is definitely a good thing to do. well done, how are you feeling? feeling good, a bit cold but not as cold as i thought i was going to be. swimming is all well and good, but only a temporary fix. only a temporary fix and although i'm going to keep doing this, lam glad i'm coming here, kind of hoping for more targeted support in the future and looking for more medications that were actually designed to help my brain to come through the nhs, that sort of thing. so scientifically, what happens when you have a migraine then? firstly, there is a chemical cascade in the midbrain. this causes problems with nerves in the scalp, which brings on the pain and the headache. next, cortical spreading depression. like an electrical activity which moves across the brain and causes what's known as aura. aura is the term used to describe the neurological symptoms and they can be split

into visual and nonvisual. if people experience the visual aura, they might see things like sparkles or stars, flashing lights and even experience temporary blindness. nonvisual aura could mean numbness or tingling, pins and needles in the arms and legs or a feeling of dizziness. and then comes the nausea, and in some cases, vomiting. sorry i'm talking to you with my eyes closed, it is really sore. but yeah, i was sat in my office doing some work office doing some work and my eyes started to go funny. and because i have had migraines for a while, i now know what it feels like, so i knew i was getting a migraine. so i have a headache. my headache is now

on this side of my head. my eyes are not closed any more. i'm just really sensitive to the light and sound. but i'm glad i'm not being sick. i think i took my medicine fast enough. i spoke too soon. i think being sick definitely helped. it kind of released some pressure of some sort. not sure how it works, but... i have eaten a packet of ready solid crisps and a packet of other crisps because carbohydrate always seem to help me. not sure if that is the same for anyone else. and also i have eaten some bread. good morning. it is day two of the migraine.

i am going to stay away from cheese and chocolate today because i know that that is a trigger, and in the past, i have eaten that on my hangover days, migraine hangover days and given myself another one. so i'm going to avoid that for today. we would all want there to be a cure but it's such a complex problem that one substance tends to helps people but to varying degrees. i think the chance of finding a cure is slim to be honest. one of the treatments that works well for some people is botox. the same injection that is used for cosmetic reasons but in this case, it helps stop the inflammation of nerves in the scalp which causes the headache. there is also what is known as tra nscranial magnetic stimulation. which is basically a magnetic pulse

going into the back of the head. it is quite stylish, isn't it? the newest model, i know. a rose gold. i will give it a go. just here? a little bit higher, perfect. that's it. did you feel anything? a little dulljolt. some don't feel any think of they describe a kickback from the device and that is exactly the pulse being released. and so that's the magnetic force. exactly, kind of an electrical pulse that goes straight through you into the brain. the idea is to interrupt the brain activity associated with migraines. one of the few drugs that treats people for migraines specifically is not widely available on the nhs. here is one of the few clinics that prescribe it for free.

it came from a breakthrough research in understanding the biology of migraines. and what it does is specifically targets one of the proteins that causes migraines. so, for the first time, we have a treatment designed for migraines that works really well. this patient who are at the end of their line in terms of treatment, they had tried almost everything. so, being able to improve the quality of life of patients for whom there was nothing else to try, that has been a great satisfaction from our point of view. and it is significant, isn't it? in some patients, there is a dramatic improvement. you can see over 50 or 60% reduction in symptoms which is great. i have invited emer and nathan to meet each other

and talk about living with chronic migraines. we are waiting on emer, should not be too long. hi. would you guys like coffee or anything? coffee as well. any decaf, that would be brilliant. that would be brilliant. nice to meet you. i'm hoping she'll be able to offer nathan some advice on working flexibly. i sayto myself what are my skills, cannot be a civil servant, not in the civil service but i can write and manage projects so i kind of went into freelance writing and am still very new to it but... it's something, yeah. so hard to know how you will feel when you wake up in the morning so kind of need that. for me, the morning is the hardest time because mornings i am pretty much always in pain. i can never tell if it is going to escalate or one that is dying off.

and it makes it so difficult to choose whether i should try and get up or continue lying down and just stay there for another three hours. that's the decaf. thank you. i take it you've caught up similar experiences. it does sound pretty similar. so, what advice would you give nathan about working and managing migraines? kind of thinking to yourself what is within the realm of possibility, what can i do today and kind of learning to kind of reframe what success looks like for you. and you both said migraines have affected your mental health. with me, and probably you as well, i find myself in a really dark place because i get the pain and i'm in a dark room in a dark

space and i am in my head for hours on end. like what nathan said, you are in a dark place physically on your own and in lots of pain and you are in a dark place mentally because you just can't escape all of the anxiety that starts to build up when you try and prevent it from happening again. i think it has a really negative effect on your mental health. if it was a headache, i would be so happy. because i could continue my daily life, i would not be worried about anything with a headache. you can pop a few tablets and continue and get through a normal day like everyone else. i think we can't. itjust doesn't seem possible. i am almost ok with people misunderstanding how severe a migraine attack is physically, but it is kind of like the emotional pain that ijust don't

think they understand. you know, it has reallyjust had such an impact on me personally. that i wish there was a bit more understanding of that, really. hello there. it's been an unsettled week of weather, a miserable week for many of us. i am sure you don't need me to remind you. but the met office has now issued some early june statistics, makes for pretty dismal reading across england and wales, particularly in terms of rainfall. as you can see, it's been pretty wet across england and wales. this map shows the rainfall as a percentage of thejune average. and it means that parts of england and wales have seen double their amount of rain already. it's also been pretty cold across england and wales,

with the darker blues denoting whether temperatures have been below the average anomaly. so, will it last? it is excited to improve a little as we go into next week. the area of low pressure, though, still with us into the weekend. it's still be a pretty unsettled spell with some showers, but not that heavy persistent rain that we have been used to. so, we start off on saturday with rain out to the west. as that moves its way steadily eastwards, it will weaken substantially, a band of cloud and a few scattered showers. where we see a little more sunshine, we should get some warmth, but always closer to that area low pressure in the north—west, that's where we're likely to continue to see more frequent showers this weekend. so, there's that low. we've still got these frontal systems spiralling in an anticlockwise direction close to that low. so, sheltered eastern areas again seeing the best of the drier, sunnier spots. further north and west, we keep those showers going, some of them heavy, quite frequent. they'll brush the finges of wales and south west england as well. so, by sunday afternoon, if you keep the sunshine,

you get a little more warmth, highest values of 19—20 degrees. now, as we move out of sunday into monday, that area of low pressure will drift away, and we come under the influence of high from the near continent, and the winds swing round to more of a southerly direction, for a couple of days at least. so, that's going to drive in a little more warmth. the yellow tones to be replaced by warmer rossets as those temperatures are expected for some of us to climb into the low, maybe even mid—20s. we still keep the risk of some showers, particularly across the far north—west. maybe a little more cloud and a few showers into west wales, but generally speaking, it's a drier day and a warmer day, and temperatures should peak at 22 degrees. that;s 72 fahrenheit. by the time we move out of monday into tuesday for central and southern parts of england, not a bad day, sunny spells, quite warm with it. showers just mostly to the far north. we could see highs of 2a or 25 degrees. that's the mid—70s. tuesday looks likely to be the warmest day of the week. but need to draw your attention to south—west by the end of the afternnon. there's potential as we move out

of tuesday into wednesday seeing another area of low—pressure bringing yet more rain on wednesday. so, wednesday, there could be a brief hiccup in the story. more welcome rain for gardeners and growers potentially, but that will be quite heavy as it moves its way steadily north and is replaced by scattered showers down to the south and west. keep some sunshine, you still keep some warmth. 23 degrees, so that's still into the low 70s, but a little disappointing under the cloud and rain. so, that area of low pressure will drift away, and then it's going to allow it later next week high pressure to build. so, it's almost a case of no two days the same when we look further ahead. but things don't look too disappointing, particularly in comparison to the week we have just seen. there will be some dry weather, there will also be some warmth with a little bit of rain maybe showing its hand as we move into the weekend. that's it. more coming up throughout the weekend. take care.