A woman was diagnosed with chronic cluster headaches after being forced to leave her own birthday party early.
Throughout a bad bout of headaches lasting months, Jenny Kirkham's face felt like it was 'on fire', with the sensation spreading down her neck and shoulders.
Jenny, 28 and from Liverpool, said it felt like a tabbing pain 'as if you were to put a knife through your eyes.'
Mere weeks later, Jenny's colleague suggested she head home from work after she showed up clutching an icepack to her head, with her face appearing bright red, and feeling like she was barely able to see.
Liverpool Echo reports that Jenny said she has no recollection of that encounter, and she also barely recalls her trip home to Belfast in Christmas 2021, other than sitting in a space between her head and the wall, holding her head in her hands.
Jenny first realised something was wrong a few weeks after the headaches started in late October 2019, when she had to leave her birthday night out early due to the pain.
She said: "Anybody who gets a headache needs to know that they're not normal and there's a reason your body is reacting that way.
"But I don't get stress headaches, I don't really get a headache when I'm tired, I don't get a headache when I'm hungover, which is how I know it's not dehydration."
The headaches persisted into January forcing Jenny to visit her GP.
Her GP, suspecting cluster headaches, referred her to a neurologist at The Walton Centre, where she answered questions about her diet and lifestyle, and underwent eye and ear tests, and an MRI scan.
Speaking of when she was diagnosed with cluster headaches, Jenny said: "I was going to this neurologist like, 'right, okay, so what do we do now?', and they're like, 'Nothing. There's no fix. You can try this anti-inflammatory'.
"And I'm like, 'Okay, how long do I take this for?', and they said 'forever'."
Not keen on taking anti-inflammatories three times a day, Jenny stopped using them, instead searching Facebook groups for tips.
For the most part, she blocks out thoughts about the chronic pain until a "fizzing" in her feet, the first sign, appears in autumn and spring.
Jenny uses Sudafed and an elastic helmet full of ice packs to take the edge off the four cluster headaches she gets a day during the attacks, which last roughly three months each.
At times, the 20-minute bursts of pain leave her lying on the bathroom floor, and some nights Jenny cries herself to sleep amid the pain and exhaustion.
Jenny said: "It gets to October and I'm like, 'Oh here we go, this is right up to Christmas now'.
"How many more Christmases am I not going to remember? It's quite sad, isn't it, that it's something you think about every single year."
The 28-year-old's mood drops when she knows an attack is looming.
She grows anxious, waking up at 2am or 7am anticipating the headaches she'll soon get at those time.
Cluster headaches are rare, affecting around one in every 1,000 people and sometimes causing a red, watery eye, a drooping and swollen eye lid, a smaller pupil, sweaty face, or blocked or runny nose, according to the NHS.
The pain can be so persistent and severe it causes people to become agitated. Some have suicidal thoughts.
Jenny's doctor urged her to attend A&E if she ever feels like this, but they said it's unlikely she will be in that position.
She said: "I'm sure I probably won't, but that doesn't make you feel better because there are times when you do feel that low and you go, 'Can't do it anymore, I have no social life, I'm screaming at people, I'm just in pain all the time, and I feel like crap'.
"You can see how people would get so low when it takes over so many aspects of your life in what people just think is a headache, and it's not that at all because it takes over your whole body.
"I can feel tingling in the end of my fingertips, my toes go numb. It takes over - you're robotic, and there's just no reason for it."
Little is known about what causes cluster headaches, for which there is no cure.
But there is ongoing medical research into ways of alleviating pain caused by cluster headaches.
Drug reformers, psychiatrists and people suffering with cluster headaches are calling on the government to reclassify a psychedelic compound called psilocybin - the active ingredient in magic mushrooms - to allow such research, The Guardian reported this week.
There is some evidence this compound could soften the condition's physical and mental impact.
According to The Guardian, a government spokesperson said: "We sympathise with the often-debilitating pain faced by people who suffer from cluster headaches.
"Medicines involving controlled drugs must go through a licensing process to ensure their safety, quality and efficacy. No medicine based on psilocybin has yet been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
"However, we are working with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to consider whether barriers to legitimate research on controlled drugs – including psilocybin – could be removed."
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