Hidden inside Lucy Lines’ glovebox was a stash of migraine wafers she once relied on constantly – until one day, she realised she no longer needed them.
She remembers spending much of her 20s and 30s battling what she called her ‘three-day headaches’, debilitating migraines that left her hiding in dark rooms, unable to work, drive or function properly.
‘There were times when I would just disappear into a dark room for two days,’ Lucy, now 53, tells the Daily Mail.
‘One of my friends I lived with had to come and check on me because I hadn’t surfaced for days. He’d bring me water and make sure I was okay.’
The migraines became such a defining part of her life that she eventually stopped believing she would ever solve them. Instead, she learned to endure them.
But everything changed after she fell pregnant with her first child. Not immediately or dramatically. In fact, Lucy says she only realised something was different in hindsight.
‘I remember suddenly thinking, “Hang on… I haven’t had a headache for ages,”‘ she says. ‘And then I thought, “Bloody hell. I need to be pregnant more!”‘
What followed would completely change the way Lucy viewed not only her migraines, but women’s health more broadly.
Lucy Lines (pictured) suffered from migraines, which she described as her ‘three-day headaches’, for decades
‘People thought it must be psychological’
Lucy first remembers suffering migraines while working at McDonald’s as a teenager.
She can still vividly picture her brother and his girlfriend coming to the drive-through to bring her painkillers because she was struggling to stay upright at work.
But it was during university that the migraines became truly unmanageable.
Living in share houses in her early 20s, Lucy would routinely lose days at a time to severe headaches that left her bedridden, nauseous and sensitive to light.
‘I used to call them my three-day headaches,’ she says.
‘I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t sit in lectures. I couldn’t work properly. They definitely impacted my studies and my work.’
Together with her father, who was a doctor at the time, she tried to identify patterns. Was it hormonal? Chocolate? Stress? Exhaustion? Nothing ever seemed to fit neatly.
After Lucy began to make ‘low-tox’ changes around her home – such as changing washing detergents, cleaning sprays, shampoos, dishwashing products and food storage containers – she realised her migraines had disappeared
And when nobody could pinpoint a clear cause, Lucy says she often felt dismissed.
‘There was this assumption that maybe it was psychosomatic,’ she says. ‘People thought maybe I was depressed, or overwhelmed, or emotionally struggling somehow.’
After years of debilitating headaches, the constant questioning eventually began affecting her mental health, too.
‘I remember ringing my dad once and saying, “I think I might be clinically depressed,”‘ she says. ‘And he said, “I think you’ve just got headaches.”‘
Still, without answers, Lucy slowly resigned herself to the idea that migraines were simply her reality.
‘I think I just accepted this was always going to be the case,’ she says.
The moment everything changed
When Lucy fell pregnant with her first child, migraines were the furthest thing from her mind. Like most pregnant women, she had plenty of other things to focus on. But somewhere during pregnancy and breastfeeding, something changed.
One day, she found herself sitting at work reflecting on how long it had been since she had needed to call in sick or reach for the migraine medication she used to carry everywhere.
‘I found one of the packets of medicated wafers I used to keep in my car and thought, “Wow… I haven’t needed one of these for ages,”‘ she says.
The change felt almost impossible to comprehend after years of pain.
‘It was very freeing,’ Lucy says. ‘Very freeing.’
For the first time in years, she could make plans without the fear of being wiped out for days by another migraine. She no longer needed to carry medication everywhere she went or mentally prepare for the possibility of losing entire weekends to pain.
Then, after breastfeeding ended, the migraines slowly crept back.
But this time, something felt different emotionally. Rather than believing the migraines were proof she was failing to cope with life, Lucy says pregnancy had given her evidence that there was a physical explanation.
‘The fact they disappeared made me realise this wasn’t just me being emotionally fragile or not resilient enough,’ she says.
‘There was clearly something happening in my body.’
The ‘lightbulb moment’
Years later, Lucy attended a conference presentation about endocrine-disrupting chemicals and environmental toxins.
The lecture focused largely on fertility, but it sparked something much bigger for her.
‘I sat there thinking this was really interesting from a fertility perspective,’ she says. ‘But then I started realising hormones don’t just impact reproduction. Hormones impact everything – brain function, mood, digestion, all of it.’
Lucy began diving deeper into the research around common everyday exposures, from plastics and fragrances to cleaning products and skincare ingredients.
Then gradually, she started making changes at home. Not dramatic, expensive overhauls – just small swaps.
She changed washing detergents, cleaning sprays, shampoos, dishwashing products and food storage containers. She became more mindful of fragrances, scented candles and highly processed foods.
She completely stopped drinking soft drinks, which she had once enjoyed daily.
As she began making changes around her home, Lucy realised many of the habits had already started during her first pregnancy, when she had become more conscious of what she was eating, using and bringing into her environment without fully connecting the dots at the time.
Then came another moment of clarity.
‘I realised I hadn’t had a headache for years,’ she says.
‘Women are expected to just push through’
Today, Lucy says she rarely gets headaches, and if she does, they’re nothing like the debilitating migraines that once dominated her life.
Unlike before, she now feels she can usually identify what triggered them.
‘If I’ve had lots of sugar, or I’ve been around lots of fragrances or scented candles all day, I notice it,’ she says. ‘But it’s never like it used to be. I can still function. I can still work.’
Lucy believes many women are conditioned to minimise chronic symptoms and simply ‘push through’ pain.
‘Of course women are expected to just keep going. That’s been the expectation forever,’ she says.
Now, Lucy is passionate about encouraging women to become more informed and curious about the products and chemicals they are exposed to every day.
‘There’s absolutely no harm in learning about reducing exposure to environmental toxins,’ she says.
‘It might help your migraines, but even beyond that, it can improve your overall health.’
For Lucy, the biggest change was not simply the disappearance of migraines; it was understanding that the pain she had spent years trying to explain was real all along.
And after decades of questioning herself, that realisation alone was a revelation.
