I'm running/walking/trying not to crawl the Virgin London Marathon 2015. I'm doing this for The Migraine Trust as they're a charity I've interacted with on a personal level since the middle of 2013.

I was diagnosed with chronic daily migraine 18 months ago and have over 25 migraines a month. I am still undergoing experimental treatments privately (the NHS waiting list is over a year long) and currently have medical botox (40 injections all over my face and head) ever 3 months to see if it helps. I'm in pain every single day - imagine having the flu every day of your life. This is not going away and its impact on my life gets worse.

See me on Sky News here having a whinge:http://news.sky.com/story/1134926/migraine-sufferers-missing-out-on-adequate-care

...and ITV here: http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-08-30/doctor-told-me-to-take-some-painkillers-and-be-done/

Without medication and control, this becomes almost constant and reduced me to being a hermit, wondering whether I'll ever be able to have children, drive, hold down a successful and progressive career, and other things I used to take for granted. I was convinced my life as I had built it was forever ruined.

The Migraine Trust has been a great support to me over the past year and I cannot thank them enough for their knowledge and help with coming to terms with my condition, and learning to manage it. I am now on their charity User Board helping to steer the charity's progress and ensure it continues to represent its users.

You may argue that migraines aren't important, they don't kill anyone. Well here's a fact for you, factfans: it's one of the most debilitating conditions in existence according to the World Health Organisation. It does kill people. I'm much more likely to have a stroke for starters.

Not only that but people have committed suicide because they cannot live with the unbearable ongoing pain and accompanying depression.

They cause social exclusion, are classified as disabling and have had a huge impact on my life. And the lives of others around me.

Migraines are not headaches. We wish they were! When you're not in pain (wahoo!) you're lying in wait for your next attack. You don't see your friends because, if you're not hurting now, something as simple as sitting next to the wrong person on the tube could cause the next.

It astounds me that something so simple as a migraine can have so many follow-on effects, as well as costing our economy billions of pounds per year, and being the go-to 'calling in sick' excuse that nobody will question when you had too many beers last night.

There's a huge funding gap meaning research isn't able to happen and for this, there is no cure. The Migraine Trust is a research-enabling charity that funds such essential work.

I want to challenge this and raise as much money as I can - there is no need for us to suffer in a world where even cancer is curable. We endure huge NHS waits (if you are lucky enough to convince your doctor that they should refer you) - I've had to go private as my current doctor has a 1-year waiting list. That, and a lack of GP training and knowledge sees a GP get 1 hour of migraine training in their entire career leading to trial and error with medicines until something perhaps works. Migraine meanwhile cost jobs and break up families.

Everyone knows someone affected by migraines and not many know their true impact on a chronic sufferers' life.

Thank you for being kind enough to visit my fundraising page.