Migraines

For the past few years my migraines have been acting up, pretty badly. I've always had headaches, but in later years these headaches have been catagory 5 in size. It's hard to relate what it is like to have a migraine to somebody that has never had one. Most people empathize, but never truly understand because they think that migraines are just frequent headaches.
When providing an example of what I am going through I usually use a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being the worst. When it is really bad I use the Transmorgafier example. A Transmorgafier is an imaginary device that takes pain and and transfers the pain to another person or entity so that they can understand what the person is going through or they can assimilate the pain for awhile so that the original sufferer can have a break. The example that I use is if there were a small poodle attached to the device, the poodle would be dead. This example often works and the person that I am talking to usually understands.

I also like to use the wine critique to explain the sensation. It gives a bit more depth to the pain:

This headache is powerfull and full-bodied, with hints of cutting and burning toward the frontal lobes and the added sensation of swelling of the brain. It's kinda like a small dwarf with razor blades for skates doing figure-eights on your brain.

This also works for most, you can see the light go off in their head and they just walk away upon hearing this.