Here's my quick story. Have had 3 attacks each occurred after defacating with absolutely no strain. I'm lactose intolerant, have been on opiates the majority of my life, hit ny head enough for a concussion 15 years ago.
First attack fell to the bathroom floor hardly able to yell for my room matem I felt like AI must've been having an aneurysm since this was pounding so hard with ny pulse it was lightning striking my head with the beat if my heart. My blood pressure spiked to something like 160/80? I can't remember but I'm usually a 90/60 . I was also experiencing nausea after awhile, hot and cold sweats, and the ambulance thought I was going thru opiate withdrawal even though I told then I had just take my methadone 2 hours prior.
Ct scan & MRI normalm having a hard time convincing my doctor something's wrong she thinks I'm a hypochondriac.
I seriously just want to k ow what's going on. Some conditions this fits are :
Psuedoaneurysm, psuedotumor, chiari malformation, SAH subarachnoid hemmorage
If anyone with symptoms matching mine finds an answer please tell me.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3639158/
Also Google exertional headache, cough headache, capital headache and valsalva induced headaches.
Some causes are benign. Others won't kill you but can be treated. Some can be fatal if not treated.
National Institutes of health article link above reveals special method of testing and various causes of these headaches. Indomethacin can help in benign cause cases but has side effects.
In a few of you there can be reason to get further evaluation. The article mentions a change in interpretations of MRI's. Firstly that the past interpretation of Chiari malformation as only being significant if it extends x number of millimeters isn't true anymore. Secondly a term "posterior fossa crowding" is included that most average age doctors never got trained about so wouldn't recognize on the MRI.
just food for thought for some of you still looking for answers.
Best of luck!
Breanna, M.D.
I was trying to find answers to why this was happening to me and came upon this site. I'm 4 months post brain surgery but kept thinking of all the people here that had the same pain and felt duty bound to tell you all what happened to me with the brain tumor and to please get an MRI. If I had gone unchecked another 10 days the neurosurgeon estimated that I would have gone to sleep and not woken up!