PROVO -- Emily Bates used to suffer from migraines. She hasn't had one recently, but still has a passion for helping those who are afflicted with them.

A professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at BYU, she and a team were featured in a cover article of Journal of Science Translational Medicine on Wednesday for research that discovered a genetic link to migraines.

She was quick to explain that not everyone who gets migraines is susceptible because of their genes. Nor is discovering the genetic link a cure for those who do.

"It is kind of a hopeful thing," she said. "It is a hope that we get to understand what is going on. It is really a bizarre disorder. It is kind of a first clue what is going on for a migraine, what makes a person more susceptible."

Migraines can affect anyone, she said.

"You can be taking care of your health in every way and go from a very healthy person to being very incapacitated," she said.

That's how Seth Hawkins feels when a migraine strikes.

"It's pretty miserable," he said. "For me, there's headaches and there's migraines. The pain is excruciating. It's hard to focus on anything. My vision will start to blur, then I get intense nausea, then the headache itself. I become extremely sensitive to light. I have to go into a really dark room. It should be a cool room as well. Heat makes the nausea even worse. I was also sensitive to sound as well.

"It's one of those that you can take stuff, sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. I get them, depending on how stressed I am, an average of two or three times a month. I used to be a schoolteacher and I got them a whole lot more. For me, the biggest help has been understanding what my triggers are and making sure I don't engage those. My two biggest are not getting enough water, and stress. If I can keep my stress level down I usually don't get migraines."

"A lot of times I will get them in the middle of the day," he said. "I will think I can tough it out. It makes it worse. Unless I'm lying down waiting for medication to kick in, it doesn't help. Sometimes it lasts three, four or five hours on end. If I take the medication, from the time I take it to the time the migraine actually starts to wear off, is usually one or two hours.

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BYU professor helps discover genetic link to migraines

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