Chances are you have experienced a headache at least once in your life.

But, a migraine is a condition marked by recurring severe headaches that can have devastating effects...

Reporter Tracy Fugere has more on how these debilitating headaches can change a person's life...for the worst...

(Reporter Tracy Fugere) 34-year-old Trisha Rennick is a stay at home mom in Lincoln. She has been battling migraines since she was in grade school. When she gets a migraine, she takes Zomiga dissolvable tablet that tastes poor but can take care of the migraine if taken in time. Trish says her migraine trigger is lack of sleep. And the migraines have become more frequent since having children. Nausea and sensitivity to light and sound are the biggest symptoms of her migraines, and when Trish gets a migraine, she is basically unable to care for her kids and even unable to care for herself..

(Trisha Rennick, Migraine Sufferer) "I have to call my husband to come home or find other arrangements because I can't hardly care for myself. I get so confused opening a Tylenol bottle or turning on the shower...it's very confusing for me. You know, if I am somewhere else, I will forget how I got there or what I'm doing there." (Reporter Tracy Fugere) Trisha continues to try new medications to get the migraines under control. If she doesn't take her Zomig in time...she has to tough it out...and that means severe pain with every heartbeat. And that can sometimes lead her to the emergency room

(Trisha Rennick, Migraine Sufferer) "For me they're really extreme. I could never take the severe pain for more than eight hours...then I would go to the ER because they will just not break at that point. I'll have to go in." (Reporter Tracy Fugere) 39-year-old Sandy Vandervorste of Bismarck started getting migraines in her early twenties...dealing with them regularly except for when she was pregnant. Now she has started to see a specialist because in the last six months...the migraines have changed. They wake her up in the middle of the night

(Sandy Vandervoste, Migraine Sufferer) "I would go to bed feeling fine...three, four o'clock in the morning I'd wake up with just this God-awful headache...get up, pack my head with ice, take whatever medication I could get my hands on basically because it was so bad. And then in the morning, it would either still be there and I would just have to deal with it." (Reporter Tracy Fugere) Sandy is a full-time MRI technician. At workSandy has three screens facing her, which become the enemy once a migraine hits...She says this is not the way she wants to live her life...and she doesn't want to keep taking narcotics

(Sandy Vandervoste, Migraine Sufferer) "Because you have to keep going...I still have children I have to deal with. I have to get them to school. I have to go to work. I can't call in sick...gotta keep functioning, so you find yourself keep taking the medication. So I knew that isn't healthy...that I needed to come get some answers." (Reporter Tracy Fugere) Like Sandy and Trish, researchers are also looking for ways to better treat migraines. For KX News, I'm Tracy Fugere.

Tomorrow, we'll tell you what area doctors are now saying about migraines and how to better manage them. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list