MADISON, Wis. -- I've got such a bad headache ... sound familiar? It should. More than 45 million Americans suffer from headaches and migraines. Much of the pain is chronic.

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"I woke up with a migraine that never went away," Patterman said. "Day in, day out for nine months.

And for some, such as Sheri Patterman, it is debilitating.

While she's driving and coaching volleyball again, it wasn't long ago, a chronic migraine forced her from her job as a dental hygienist, and as a mother.

"I had to recondition my kids," she said. "They really grew up while I was sick."

Patterman was eventually hospitalized for her headaches.

Find out what it took to break her nine-month migraine and a new approach to treating headaches and migraines in Carleen Wild's Special Eye on Health report.

Sheri Patterman greets her daughters after school every day. Then it's off to volleyball as the coach of their middle school teams. She loves it, but Patterman also knows how easily it can all be taken away.

After suffering chronic severe headaches and migraines her entire life, last August she got one that lasted for nine months.

"I woke up with a migraine that never went away," she said. "Day in, day out for nine months. I didn't go out of house, didn't drive, see kids off, wouldn't help get ready, have someone drive home from school. I would move from bed to couch, try to help with homework ... as soon as my husband got home from work, I would head back to bed again."

In December, her body shut down. She would lose track of what she was saying and doing, which was especially dangerous in her job as a dental hygienist. She had to quit.

While Patterman's story sounds extreme, headaches are debilitating for a large segment of the population, Wild reported.

"One thing that makes it difference for migraine sufferers is that it's a disorder rather than a disease, so they grow up that way, and just assume people are like that," said Dr. Douglas Dulli, neurologist at the University of Wisconsin.

But there is some good news.

"If you're disabled because of the disorder, there may be answers for you now that there have not been in the past," Dulli said.

Besides better medications to treat the pounding already in your head, experts now agree the best treatment for chronic migraine and headache sufferers lies in preventing them in the first place.

Patterman eventually was hospitalized at a headache clinic to break her migraine.

She now takes three different medications daily -- one of which helps regulate her serotonin levels, believed to be a migraine trigger.

"Preventative is something I always want to focus on," Patterman said. "I won't go back to where I was. I can do things with kids now where couldn't play with them, go to school ... "

Her kids say it's fun to have their mom back.

"When I first came back again, it was like I had to fit into my family again -- I had been gone for so long," Patterman said.

The best piece of advice both Patterman and Dulli have for anyone suffering -- whether it's chronic migraines or just frequent headaches -- is don't dismiss them.

And don't let your doctor dismiss them. There are treatments that work, whether it's on the front or back end of a headache. And there are treatments that will help you regain control of your life, or if nothing else, just your day.

For more information on headaches, read "Migraine Misconceptions" in this month's Madison Magazine.

Headache Web Sites

National Headache Foundation

American Council for Headache Education

American Headache Society