A FORMER air stewardess who suffered from debilitating migraines for more than 40 years has turned to a new device to help relieve her struggles.

Helen Powell, 61, went through years of failed treatments and medications – including nerve-block injections – before finding long-term relief in a hand-held device that fires an electric current into vagus nerves in her neck.

After being diagnosed with hemicrania continua – chornic headaches – at Spire Cheshire Hospital in Stretton, she was put on to the relatively new device known as GammaCore.

Helen said: “Migraines have virtually ruled my life. They caused me to stop working because I had to take so much time off and at one stage I was spending four days a week confined to my bed because the pain was so overpowering.

“I look back at my old life and shudder, I have missed out on so many things. My daughter Lucinda (Bellis), was recently riding in the British Dressage National Championships and I was there to cheer her on. Before I began using the GammaCore I just wouldn’t have been able to do that.

“In May my sister was 60 Lucinda and I went on a cruise around the Med with her – it was fabulous. We saw the sights, we sunbathed went to the shows and really burnt the candle at both ends and I didn’t get a single headache.

“I wake up every morning feeling fine, my head is clear and I am looking forward to the day ahead. I now have a really positive feeling about my future and where life is going to take me.”

A predominantly one-sided and persistent headache causing jabbing and stabbing pains along with a restlessness and agitation, hemicranias continua also causes red, runny, puffy and droopy eyes, blocked and running nose, fullness in the ear, tinnitus, flushing and sweating.

Dr Nicholas Silver said: “Helen was in a desperate state, her headaches had steadily become more severe and more frequent.

“The pain was to the right side of her head behind the eye and the temple, a stabbing pain combined with a throbbing pressure in the eye.

“I was aware of the various painkillers and treatments she had been given in the past and thought that it would be worth her trying a relatively new device.”