If Stress Triggers Your Migraine Attacks, Khloé Kardashian's Symptoms May Sound Familiar
Normally most of the Kardashian world is hard to relate to but Khloé Kardashian’s experience with migraine symptoms may sound very familiar if you’ve struggled with triggers during stressful times in your life.
During Sunday’s episode of the reality TV series “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” Khloé Kardashian revealed her migraine symptoms flared in the stressful period after she found out her romantic partner and father of her child, Tristan Thompson, cheated on her.
“I get really bad migraines but they’ve been increasing more and more. And I don’t know if my migraines and nausea are caused by the same thing, I’m not really sure,” Kardashian said during the episode. “Some days I feel great and I don’t feel nauseous at all and I don’t have a headache and I’m fine. And then the next day, the slightest thing might really upset me, and I get blindsided by them.”
Over the course of the episode, Kardashian tries to determine the cause of her symptoms. She takes a pregnancy test, which comes back negative, and questions whether or not her birth control may be a contributing factor. A trip to the doctor for an MRI confirms her scary symptoms are migraine-related.
“Literally my whole head feels bruised because it’s been pounding for so long and it’s terrifying,” Kardashian shared. “I’ve been throwing up blood. It’s so intense. I’m blind in my left eye.”
While Kardashian does not confirm what type of migraine she experienced, some of her symptoms, like blindness in one eye, are consistent with migraine with aura. According to the American Migraine Foundation, aura is a series of sensory disturbances, like vision issues, tingling in your body and difficulty speaking. These symptoms usually precede the migraine and last 20-60 minutes.
Migraine may be triggered by many things, including stress like Kardashian experienced. If stress is one of your migraine triggers, you’re not alone. Mighty community member Sarah M.I. shared in the article “16 ‘Triggers’ That Can Cause Migraine Symptoms to Flare” how stress affects her migraine symptoms, saying:
Other than weather changes, unexpected bad or sad news can trigger them. I’m not sure the physiological basis for this, but I know it is true for me. When my friend passed away in March very unexpectedly, I cried and then I got a three-day migraine.
To give and get support for coping with your migraine triggers, post a Thought or Question on The Mighty using the hashtags #Migraine or #DistractMe.
These articles have also helped others in The Mighty’s migraine community:
Renée Fabian was the features editor at The Mighty. She has also written for The Washington Post, VICE, Healthline, Talkspace, The Fix, The Establishment, The Culture Trip, and GRAMMY.com, among others. Renée was named a 2019 AHCJ Comparative Effectiveness Research fellow, a 2020 USC Center for Health Journalism California fellow, and holds a master's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California and a master's degree in psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles. You can follow her on Twitter @ryfabian.
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