Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Severe Migraine Headache

Question:
My sister wants to know if anyone has experienced a severe migraine headache where it feels like your head is going to explode? She is very scared. Please respond as soon as possible if you can.

Answer:
I'm currently battling a relapse of lyme disease (neuroborelliosis?) that now looks to be the latest in an ongoing infection that I've had to some degree for more than 11 years. Headaches are literally a constant feature of my illness - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Until I started antibiotics for the relapse about 4 months ago, I had been experiencing crippling migraines an average of 2 to 3 times a week. These would usually put me out for 6 to 8 hours at a time. If they occurred at night, I would wake up from the pain. Although my treatment to date has only scratched the surface of this illness, the migraine episodes have subsided -- it seems to be one of few improvements that I've experienced as a result of the past 15 weeks on antibiotics...(more and different treatment to be undertaken soon). Something your sister may want to keep in mind: - headaches like this are not at all uncommon with neuroborelliosis - neurologists who are not particularly familiar with lyme disease are just as likely to listen to your symptoms and assume that you are suffering from either some classic form of migraines, or cluster headaches. If they believe this, you will likely be treated with migraine control medicine, such as nortriptyline, which will do little if your headache is due to lyme disease. Make sure that you sister's evaluation and treatment is done by a true lyme literate doctor, or else she may wind up with someone trying to ameliorate her symptoms but not treating the underlying disease.