For the past three weeks, Tori Spelling has been complaining about headaches that just will not go away. Over the weekend they got so bad that she was rushed to the hospital. Either that or she wanted to see if she could get an ambulance ride and hear them use the siren. I hate really bad headaches. Whenever I get one that is really awful, I know it is a brain aneurysm and I cannot be talked out of it until the headache goes away. I feel fortunate that I have never really suffered migraines but feel sorry for people who get them. I think about a bad headache I might get and then multiply that by 10 and not have anything you can do about it and I feel sorry for that person. It is kind of like we are helpless against headaches like that. Hangover headaches are one thing but these awful can't do anything except close your eyes headaches are just something that you have to live with until they end.
Tori has been having the headaches since the birth of her child a few weeks ago. Related? It could also be that Dean will not stop shutting up about how he wants to win an Emmy before Lindsay wins her Oscar.
You can get spinal headaches as a result of an epidural during childbirth. They're excruciating.
ReplyDeleteLOL! I love how "Spelling," is, well, misspelled. :-)
ReplyDeleteCue all the whiny "Enty's not really a lawyer" comments in 5, 4, 3, 2...
I suffer from migraines with acute tension headaches (compared to intense cramps where blood pumps too fast and swells veins to severe pain).
ReplyDeleteHad really thought a few times that I had a tumor, or aneurysm. So I truly feel bad for anyone having intensive days-on-end migraines.
Had so many prescription medication, some with truly weird affects (one prescription had me numbed completely except for the throbbing pain on the left side of my face, that I had calmly considered taking a drill, and drilling my skull so I could grab the vein and cut it off). That's when I new that no drugs could take care of this sort of pain. Drugs only try to numb the pain, not take care of the actual problem, causing the pain.
Now I take no drugs, none, and simply live low-carb, which has tremendously cut down on migraines.
I got a spinal headache after back surgery and those really are absolutely miserable. I'm not sure that's what Tori has though... first of all, I would have thought that the pain would have gotten so unbearable within a week of the baby being born that she would have gotten it checked then and also, if it is a spinal headache, there's no way she'd even be able to have her eyes open when sitting in an upright position. The only way to take pressure off the torn dura is to lie down completely.
ReplyDeleteRita, your symptoms sound similar to a friend of mine. She also stopped using all the drugs and greatly increased the amount of raw food in her diet. She tried full raw for a while, but really missed certain foods. Changing her diet helped her too. She's fairly low carb as well, but not obsessive about it.
ReplyDeleteI suffered terribly from headaches years ago. Ended up in the ER 3-4 times. The cause was birth control pills for me--I stopped taking them, and the migraines disappeared. Now I have maybe one a year.
ReplyDeleteCan't stand tori, but I gotta feel for her and her pain. You just can't fight a migraine.
This is most likely related to her epidural, although 3 weeks is a pretty long time to have a spinal headache.
ReplyDelete@FS - good for your friend! I don't know how I got so gullible and misinformed for accepting all these prescriptions that simply try to cover the pain, and make it worse with time.
ReplyDeleteI had simply cut on all sugars and flour. Load up on organic veggies and meats. I've read somewhere that refined carbs cause addiction, and some doctors consider allergies as a sign of food addictions.
So it became simple, the path for breaking addiction is through abstinence.
Halloween is hell, I try to greedily keep candy I can't eat and end up taking all to the office the next day for my colleagues. At least I'm making others happy!
I have migraines. They are just AWFUL. I hope that she feels better, I cannot imagine that and a new baby and two other children not in school yet. : (
ReplyDeleteRita - none of my doctors have ever mentioned anything about my diet with regards to my headaches. When I was younger, I used to get terrible migraines. Once I had my son, they stopped, but occasionally I get a long-lasting tension headache (the kind there is no point to taking any medication for, because it's not going to make a difference). I've greatly reduced the amount of carbs I eat, just to be healthy. I wonder if that's why my headaches have subsided for the most part?!
ReplyDeleteIn any event, don't love Tori, but having a non-stop headache is the pits, and I feel for her...
@ Rita - I've been doing the low-carb, high veggie and meat thing on and off for a bit too. It's been fantastic for me, healthwise, have definitely fallen off for Halloween. I'm an absolute sugar fiend.
ReplyDeleteI also get migraines, but I finally figured out my trigger was my menstrual cycle, so I'm lucky. I also learned that Advil/Motrin/Ibuprofen doesn't help me, but Excedrin does (tylenol, aspirin, caffeine). I am one of the lucky ones that mine weren't food related, I have no diet discipline at all.
ReplyDeleteYears ago there was a man on KGO radio in SF who had great info about migraines, I learned a lot from him. He is a strong advocate for cutting back on drugs and keeping a migraine diary to find the triggers. He says that most migraines can be cured or handled with simple cures but you have to be willing to do the work. Wish I could remember his name and the name of his book.
Her migraines could definitely be related to hormones. I have severe endometriosis and am having a hysterectomy next week at the age of 42. I weigh myself every day (am big and curious as to my weight fluctuation) and when I had my last periods overnight I lost over 2 kilos from the amount of fluid that I had excreted the day before. I almost fainted last Monday night and haven't felt quite right since. I am counting the days till I get this womb out of my body. Anyone can have problem free child birth and then have difficulty for no obvious reason. It is just so random.
ReplyDelete@KLM, this could definitely mean your headaches are related to some carb addiction/allergies, that were resulting in severe migraines. Look into it. Some are more sensitive to refined flour and sugar. I say better get warning signs through migraines than later in life through hard life altering disease.
ReplyDeleteI really feel for anyone with intense migraines. They truly alter your mood and do not allow you to partake in everyday life activities.
@Feisty - I found out also that the low-carb is best for me. My skin feels better too, I've been sleeping really well, and like @FS, I've been only getting little migraines before my periods. But nothing mind numbing like before.
Can you imagine having those severe migraines with 3 kids to take care of like @bluebonnet said!
Thanks, Rita - I plan to google all about it tonight!!
ReplyDelete@feraltart - yikes - sorry you are going through this! That is scary... I have a friend who is a bit younger (35) who has endometriosis and she is in a lot of pain. I don't wish that upon anyone.
The worst headache I ever had: I had a cold, so I took a Contac. I had a headache as well, and took some aspirin. I thought my head was going to explode! I think I finally passed out due to the pain. Moral of this story: Never combine drugs until you have checked a drug interaction chart.
ReplyDelete@KLM, if you have any questions, don't be shy.
ReplyDelete@feraltart - One of my friends went trought the exact same procedure that she had been begging for for years! But doctors think that she should wait and see if she'll be having children, and bearing all that pain for decades, before finally agreeing to operate after her 40th b-day.
Now she leads a full, pain-free life. And even sex had become more about pleasure, for because of the emdometriose had become the act had become too painful the last couple of years.
Hope you get better soon!
@ Rita - Yes! My skin cleared up completely, it's been amazing. I've only had a couple of migraines in my life (thankfully, they were so awful I don't know how people function with them), but it's helped with allergies and sinus headaches that I get (they're extremely low-level migraines that come from changes in barometric pressure).
ReplyDeleteRita, thank you for the info about low carb being good for migraines. I get wicked ones and never thought that food could be part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteI have endometreosis also and the doctors tried giving me the Depoprovera shots and I got migraines from those so then I got Depolopron shots and also got migraines from them. Decided that I'd rather deal with the painful periods rather than multiple migraines every week.
ReplyDelete@Astrid and Feisty - One thing I learned about Low-carb living, it is most effective when simply applied. DO NOT USE SWEETNERS! They bring on the headaches as well as bad skin and breath. Stick to a bit of Splenda in your coffee. That's it. Gotta break the pattern of addiction. The best way I know is from abstaining in consuming in high-carb products.
ReplyDeletePeople give me migraines! I swear to God! Certain people will trigger a migraine for me. I rarely get migraines, but big emotional things will give them to me. I remember after seeing my Dad a couple of years ago and going home in excruciating pain. I passed out from the it. The last one I had was on my 40th birthday from a mud bath. Something in the mud triggered a migraine for me.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that works for me is a dark room and sleep. I will say that after I wake-up from a migraine I feel so refreshed and recharged. I asked my doctor about that, and she said that was pretty normal. Migraines are also hereditary. I'm lucky that mine are so few and far between, but my cousin gets them about once a month. He has tried everything, but nothing works for him.
It could be preeclampsia, in which case, she shouldn't drive in case she has a seizure. But where is Mr. Tori? Isn't part of his job description to act as her chauffeur and all around lackey?
ReplyDeleteI think I found it! Dr David Buchholz, Heal Your Headache. That's the guy and the book. That might help some people. :)
ReplyDeleteFeraltart, all the very best wishes for you and your upcoming procedure. Please check back in with us in a few weeks and let us know you are okay. :)
I was going to say complications from preeclampsia or HELP syndrome. I was on modified bed rest and anytime i would get up to do anything i would get a headache so bad it left me in tears and crawling back bed.
ReplyDelete2 weeks before i was due with #1 because my BP was so high the office director walked me accross the street herself to the hospital because they were afraid i would pass out.
Something like that can cause post pregnancy issues.
I also get migraines. I have lots of triggers: not getting enough sleep, getting hungry and not eating something soon enough, stress, hormone fluctuations. I manage them the best I can, and I take an eletripan when I need to.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, I had excruciating headaches that weren't migraines. Turns out, I had moved weird and caused a nerve in the base of my skull to swell. It took weeks for the docs to figure it out; meanwhile, I was hopped up on pain killers and muscle relaxers. Finally, two doses of corticosteroids reduced the swelling and alleviated the pain.
Migraine sufferers, there is hope. I had debilitating migraines for about 20 or so years, but after I hit 40, they have decreased substantially. In the past 8 years, I can count the number of migraines I've had on one hand.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the rest of you will get some relief. Until they started going away, I lived on Imitrex and Fiorinal.
I grew up getting pretty debilitating migraines regularly and I was on painkillers for them in college - Rita's right, they just barely mask the pain. I now rarely get the classic migraine (intense pain, light sensitivity, nausea, etc.) but I still get "ocular migraines" which mainly screw with one's vision and sometimes settle into a mild migraine once the vision has cleared up. My triggers are a combination of extreme stress, lack of sleep and heredity. Like other posters have mentioned, the "classic" migraines mostly stopped after I started eating low carb, eating better in general and exercising regularly.
ReplyDeleteThe worst headache I ever had though was when I had spinal meningitis almost 5 years ago. For about a week, it was like a knife jabbing into the base of my skull repeatedly. Morphine and dilaudid barely took the edge off. Two weeks after that I was getting by with Darvocet and limited internet reading/TV watching. Anyway, a spinal headache sounds extremely similar to what I experienced with meningitis. If so, I feel so so so sorry for Tori, and I don't particularly like her either.
I had migraines as a young woman. Then at 19 I had one that lasted as long a Tori's. Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital with 220/120 blood pressure and finding out my kidneys were hosed and I would eventually need dialysis and a transplant.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope Tori has a better diagnosis than that. She looks quite unwell in the pic .. that is for darned sure!
Another endo/migraine sufferer here. :/
ReplyDeleteA couple of years ago, I had such a bad migraine that I went to the E.R., where I was given medicine, and after a few hours, I felt somewhat better and went home. I got into bed, but I couldn't
sleep-- my body was just shaking. I called the hospital, and they basically said it was my fault. Eventually I called my regular doctor and he told me that the medicine they'd given me at the hospital was known to cause adverse reactions in combination with a prescription I take. I had to wait several hours to see the doctor who'd originally prescribed my regular medication, all the while only being able to sit for a couple of minutes at a time because of the shaking/jitteriness. I was given medication to counteract it, but it took a week or two until I felt back to normal.
Thanks for all the kind thoughts. I have been out all day. My husband and I couldn't have children, but still, my Ob/Gyn was willing to give me the hysterectomy at 41, but it has taken me over 12 months to be mentally prepared. I should note that it is my husband who is infertile, so that did play a part in my holding off. Now, I want it out last week. Can't wait. Will definitely keep you posted.
ReplyDeleteI just shared this entire thread with my mom/sis who get really bad migraines. I am lucky that I have not experienced them yet, although now I am in my 30's I'm sure they are just around the corner.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard the link between them and carbs!? Very interesting.
i have not had a migraine since i left my husband 2 years ago. hummm...i knew they were stress induced.
ReplyDeleteonce a neighbor gave me a Rx she took for her migraines (i just could not take the pain and DH was out of town). it did get rid of the migraine, but it numbed my brain in the area that had hurt. for 2 days i had that thing you feel when your arm falls asleep, only in my brain. i literally could feel the different areas of my brain. drove me nuts.