One woman has told how crying over a breakup triggered a migraine that led doctors to discover two blood clots in her brain. They said she had unknowingly had a minor stroke the week before and could have died.
Liv, 24, from Texas, shared an abridged version of her shocking story in a now-viral video that has been viewed more than 486,000 times on TikTok, where she uses the handle @bake_you_acake.
“One time I cried so hard because of a broken heart, it gave me a migraine that lasted for two weeks and resulted in a stroke when I was 20,” she wrote in the on-screen caption.
Liv, 24, from Texas, opened up about how crying over a breakup triggered a migraine that led to the discovery that she had two blood clots and had a mini-stroke
She shared an abbreviated version of her shocking story in a now-viral video that has been viewed more than 486,000 times on TikTok
She explained that no one believed she had had a stroke until she passed out and was taken to hospital for a CT scan.
“I had two blood clots on a large vein in my brain, and my doctor said he was shocked I hadn’t had a major stroke and died from the placement…all of them [because] a boy didn’t love me either,’ she concluded.
Liv clarified in a follow-up video that she “didn’t end up in the hospital because of a broken heart,” saying doctors believe her birth control had caused the blood clots and subsequent stroke.
“Yes, the crying of the breakup led to the migraines, but they think the blood clot had been going on for a while,” she explained. “I just didn’t know about it.”
Liv clarified in a follow-up video that she “didn’t end up in the hospital because of a broken heart,” saying doctors believe her birth control had caused the blood clots and subsequent stroke
“Yes, the crying of the breakup led to the migraines, but they think the blood clot had been going on for a while,” she explained. ‘I just didn’t know’
A transient ischemic attack (TIA), often called a ministroke, is caused by a temporary blockage in the blood supply to the brain.
It differs from a full stroke in that the effects are short-lived. Usually these blows last a few minutes and leave no lasting damage.
Liv, who was a student at Texas A&M University at the time, recalls how she “cried so much” after her breakup that her “head started hurting really bad” and the pain wouldn’t go away.
She went to the emergency room and was given pain medication, but it did nothing to relieve her constant migraines.
Another week went by and she was at her friend’s house for dinner when suddenly it felt like everything was going in slow motion, like she was under a strobing light.
Liv’s father took her to the emergency room after she almost passed out, and a CT scan showed she had two blood clots on a large vein in her brain
The doctor was shocked that she hadn’t had a massive stroke and she was immediately taken off birth control and put on blood thinners
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh god, my head is like I’m really killing myself,'” she said.
Driving home, Liv suddenly found herself in Bryan, Texas, a small town outside of College Station, where her school’s campus is located.
‘I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know my name. I had a massive panic attack. I freaked out for about two minutes, and then I popped out,” she said. “Literally this whole side of my body felt like it was sagging, but it wasn’t. I looked in the mirror. There was nothing, but it just felt heavy, like my cheeks and everything.”
Liv texted her ex telling him she thought she “just had a stroke,” but he convinced her she was fine. When she went home the following week, her doctor gave her medication to treat her migraines, but it still wouldn’t go away.
“I remember I was just crying, like I was sobbing in my bed, and my dad came into the room and said, ‘Are you just f**king depressed?'” she explained. “And I was like, ‘No, my head hurts.'”
Liv had already missed two weeks of school by that point, and her father told her she had to go back to College Station or she would fail all of her classes.
However, when she went down, she almost passed out. Then he took her to the emergency room, and she discovered that she had been right about everything.
“The doctor was so nonchalant,” she said. “He was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I know what the problem is. You’ve got two blood clots in your brain on a large artery… you’ve had a minor stroke.'”
Liv believes the blood clots and stroke were caused by her birth control, but no one knows for sure.
Estrogen in birth control pills is known to cause blood clots that can lead to stroke and women who use oral contraceptives twice as likely have a stroke than their counterparts who do not take them.
However, it is important to note that the population size is already so small that a doubled risk does not mean the risk is high, especially in women without other risk factors such as a cigarette smoking addiction and a history of hypertension.
‘It was all weird. They still have no idea what caused it,’ Liv explained. “They put me on blood thinners — exclaim Xarelto — and I literally stopped getting migraines after that. So they think it could have happened all my life, and I had no idea.”
Liv said it was “crazy” that she started using birth control at 15 to stop her migraines, but the oral contraception only made them worse.
She added that she would have surgery to remove the blood clots, which have become much smaller thanks to the blood thinners, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“So I’m still trying to figure that out,” she said.