What A Headache – Woman Wakes Up With Foreign Accent After Suffering A Migraine

38-year-old Sarah Colwill from Devon in England has never been to China. In 2010, after being hospitalised with an intense migraine, Sarah awoke with a Chinese accent.

Sarah’s distinct English brogue was replaced with a Chinese accent, much to the dismay of medical professionals.

The BBC documentary, ‘The woman who woke up Chinese,’ which aired on Tuesday, detailed through Sarah’s extraordinary story, and in the opening scene Sarah wipes away tears as she shares, "it's just been such a horrible thing to go through.”

Sarah Colwill now speaks with a Chinese accemt after suffering from an intense migraine.

Colwill is suffering from a rare neurological disorder called Foreign Accent Syndrome.

To date, there have only 150 cases of FAS confirmed ever, which have been often brought on by stroke or traumatic brain injury.

"You don't even know who you are anymore,” Colwill explained.

The symptoms of the illness is not just the woman’s accent but Sarah also has a loss of vocabulary and experiences physical pain while trying to write the English language.

Currently there is no cure for the illness, however scientists are now beginning to find a common link to the condition, migraines.

In 2012 Alun Morgan, an Englishman woke from a massive stroke speaking fluent Welsh. And in June a woman in Australia spoke out about her struggle with FAS for eight years after being surviving a car crash, which broke her back and jaw, she developed a French accent.