Migraines are more severe than headaches and are often accompanied by other symptoms, such as dizziness, sensitivity to light, visual disturbances, nausea and vomiting, and difficulty speaking.<\/p>\n
The pain may be throbbing in one side of the head and can last several days.<\/p>\n
The Migraine Trust, for which Ahmed is an ambassador, says the condition is two to three times more common in women<\/a> than men.<\/p>\n According to Ahmed, treatments such as Botox and other drugs, which target a chemical in the brain called calcitonin gene-related peptide<\/a> (CGRP) in order to block pain in the lead-up to a migraine attack, have so far helped about 95% of patients with the condition.<\/p>\n “In my lifetime I cannot see any cure coming out because we still don’t know what causes migraines,” he says.<\/p>\n Ahmed discusses his work with Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, at a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace in 2025 [Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust]<\/p>\n Current drugs control symptoms and triggers, which means sufferers get far fewer migraine days and can continue with daily life.<\/p>\n While no research is close to finding the root cause, oestrogen is a major trigger of migraines and family genetics is also a factor, Ahmed explains.<\/p>\n He says a new generation of drugs being developed in Denmark means the number of untreatable migraine cases could “come down to about 2 to 3%”.<\/p>\n Ahmed, who is now partially retired, is also an honorary advisor with the British Association for the Study of Headache.<\/p>\n He says he faced some scepticism when he suggested establishing the UK’s first dedicated NHS clinic to treat patients with Botox.<\/p>\n “I wanted to be the first one to set up a clinic for the benefit of the patients and I managed to do that and that is, I feel, quite a big achievement for me.”<\/p>\n Now, 14 years on, Ahmed says he has turned his attention to “training the next generation of doctors”.<\/p>\n He is also raising money via the proceeds from the sale of his new book to fund research by PhD students.<\/p>\n The book, titled Beneath the Dust<\/a>, recounts his childhood in Pakistan and journey from medical school to the UK, as well as his work and research in the field. Proceeds will go to the Migraine Trust.<\/p>\n Ahmed says reading positive comments from patients on social media makes him “feel very happy that I have been a part of people’s life changing experience”, knowing he has made a difference to their wellbeing.<\/p>\n Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds<\/a>, watch the latest episode of Look North<\/a>.<\/p>\n Download the BBC News app from the App Store<\/a> for iPhone and iPad or Google Play<\/a> for Android devices<\/p>\n More on this storyRelated internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leading neurologist believes migraines will never be “cured in my lifetime”, but the number of untreatable patients…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[210266,49,48,210264,84,210265,142191,10569],"class_list":["post-537670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-botox-injections","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fayyaz-ahmed","tag-health","tag-migraine-trust","tag-nhs-humber-health-partnership","tag-patients"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/67691bbb9a94ece1b79f6e449e219989.jpeg\"\/)
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