If migraine attacks have impacted your ability to simply go about your day, spend time with your family and friends, or do your job, then you and Academy Award®, Golden Globe® Award and 13-time Grammy® Award-winning actress and philanthropist have a lot in common.

Lady Gaga recently opened up to Pfizer.com about how migraines have affected her life.

“My experience with migraines was debilitating. I would be in bed for days with tremendous pain in my head, behind my eyes, and all throughout my face,” she says. “I couldn’t read or have any lights on, and I needed to be alone in a quiet room for hours that could lead to days until the pain subsided.”

Sound familiar?

If so, you are not alone. An estimated 40 million people in the United States and more than 1 billion people around the world experience migraine attacks.1

Diagnosed with migraine at age 14, she says attacks happened about once a month at first. By age 25, however, she was dealing with other medical conditions along with the migraines. The combination of pain from her migraines and managing the other conditions left her barely functional, she says.

Though duller than before, now her migraine attacks were happening more frequently—several times a month and lasting entire days.

“I can’t tell you how many primary care doctors visits I’ve cried through when they ask me how I was feeling,” she confides.

There is, as yet, no cure, but scientists, including those at Pfizer, are working to better understand migraine and are continuing to develop new treatments. And in the last few years, Lady Gaga has found reason to be optimistic.

“I hope that by sharing my story, it will help more people with migraine find the relief they need.”