For five years I have suffered migraines on and off when needing to open my bowels. Excruciating pains and blood pressure shoots up 189/90 which compared to 115/50 which I usually have which is low and always has been. I pace around the room as no lying down or taking pain killers helped. When I pass the stool my headache disappeared immediately and that always seems to happen and I’m exhausted. I decided to AI the exact symptoms I was getting and I came up with the perfect answer. I have stenosis and when the stool stretches this part of the bowel it sends pain signals straight up the spine to the head and the vagus nerve panics and shoots up the blood pressure and called visceral nerve hypersensitivity. All due to the damage from radiotherapy. I printed this off and when I saw my oncologist last week I gave it to her and said I even described how the pain hits inside my jaw and back of the head. She had never heard of it and found this really interesting. She said I should go back taking movicol to keep things soft and it’s not really a laxative but stool softening. I also was prescribed amitriptyline which totally zonked me out from 10 at night until 8am! Also dozing until midday. This drug is a nerve blocker but I was constantly drinking as it dehydrates and forever weeing. I have decided to try the movicol again and stop the amitriptyline. Let’s see what happens. My oncologist feels I would benefit from an anal stretching procedure and seeing a colorectal surgeon in December.
Julie
