Hi
I know Missmoss was talking about this the other day so I thought I would setup a poll to find out if people were under a lot of stress before the big bang. Dr S told me the majority of his patients were under a lot of stress in the lead up before the big bang. He said it’s not normally during the stressful time it’s after (the come down)
I thought i would keep it simple with a yes or no answer
I was under a lot of stress for around 4 months and then a month later the big bang started
you/ve got to vote also mate 
I was under stress for a long time leading up to settling in switzerland and breaking up from a long term relationship. I thought I was coping well with it but obviously I wasn’t!
oh yeah 
just done it now
Mine was more like I felt chronically stressed all the time and could not relax properly rather than just stressing about one big thing x
No more stress than any other time of my life. Migraine had been worse over the previous 6 months (neck pain) though I’d had episodes before.
I’m not sure how definitive a poll like this will be. If you asked a group of people if they were more stressed than usual at any random given point in time, you’d probably find a sizeable proportion would say yes.
The poll isnt asking if you were more stressed than normal its asking were you under a lot of stress. I was the most stressed i had ever been in my life
The poll is trying to work out if major stress played a part in your big bang (the start of VM)
yes, I was - I planned my wedding and bought a house within 4 months… many family arguments and stress, working 3 jobs, ridiculous!! paid for it in the long run has taken me 2 years to get over it but finally better 
mrslala Sophie, great to hear from you. I thought you had been told it wasn’t VM causing your problems? Did you get your back sorted? Great that you are better now! x
Robert –
If you really want to lock this down and gather some good evidence showing an association between a Big Bang event and a lot of stress, you could add two extra arms to your investigation to make this more robust.
Arm #2: Ask another random group of people if they were under a lot of stress the last time they became ill with any illness – including common colds etc. Here we would be looking to see if stress correlates with feeling ill in any form and not solely a Big Bang event leading to VM.
Arm #3: Ask another random group if they had been under a lot of stress at any given point of time over the last year and was there any adverse health outcomes as a result? Here I suspect you’d find most people would say they had been under a lot of stress at one point or another over the last year with no significant adverse outcome. But maybe not. You can’t know for sure until you test the hypothesis with control groups and see if there are significant statistical differences among the groups. Even then you’d need to calculate sample size to allow for the detection of an effect that was clinically relevant.
Anyway, that’s the full-on science geek way to do this though I understand you are conducting a general uncontrolled probe.
Cheers
I think Dr S is right. I was actually very very stressed before the big bang. As my stress levels started to reduce that’s when I had the big bang. I believe that I may have been a migraineur genetically hence the stress triggered it. We all know undue stress leads to illness in many forms. So those who are not migraineurs could end up with some other form of illness. Just my thoughts
I was very stressed when my dizziness started. It makes sense to me.
I’m with Scott here about control groups etc (but there again, I’m a science geek too).
I think if you asked most people of working age if there were stressed, the majority would say yes. And most would also attribute some health problem to their stress levels. I don’t feel that MAV is unique in this way.
For the record though, I don’t think I was particularly stressed before my big bang event. In fact I’d just been on a nice relaxing holiday beforehand, and I’d had a year without any major upsets.
Interesting. I was under the most stress I have ever been under leading up to the big bang. I graduated from vet school, moved across the country, and 6 months into my first job was offered the opportunity to buy the practice I was working at. Then 6 months of very stressful negotiations and then the first 6 months of ownership were crazy. Interestingly it was when things started to settle that I started to feel worse. I even cut my hours but it didn’t help, things were already in motion. I went down hill for about 6 months but was still functioning. Then one day I couldn’t function anymore. Severe 24/7 nausea, dizziness and headache. Bedridden for 3 months until I started a preventative.
leanne how is the verapamil going? how much have you improved now? What dose are you on? Has it helped walking/balance?
Was the the first mav med u tried?
— Begin quote from “leannefr”
Interesting. I was under the most stress I have ever been under leading up to the big bang. I graduated from vet school, moved across the country, and 6 months into my first job was offered the opportunity to buy the practice I was working at. Then 6 months of very stressful negotiations and then the first 6 months of ownership were crazy. Interestingly it was when things started to settle that I started to feel worse. I even cut my hours but it didn’t help, things were already in motion. I went down hill for about 6 months but was still functioning. Then one day I couldn’t function anymore. Severe 24/7 nausea, dizziness and headache. Bedridden for 3 months until I started a preventative.
— End quote
Leanne, you are so similar to me… it was when things settled down that this crap all started after a lengthy period of stress.
Stress letdown is a big trigger of migraine from what I understand. We are able to cope somehow with periods of high stress but its when it all goes that we get hit by migraine.
Tha’s interesting - that’s what happened with me also. I lived for years with a lot of stress - single parent, 3 children, 2 jobs, took classes, incredibly busy. Just as everything was calming down and I actually had time to myself, finished classess, back to only 1 job - I was feeling the best I had in years. Then - the big Dizzy! That’s what was hard for me to understand/
Sarah,
Verapamil has helped a lot. I have been able to go back to work part time. It has helped with both headaches and balance/dizziness. I would say I am about 70% so I am by no means better but at least I can function. Still have bad days when I over do it or eat something weird. Currently on 160 mg. Going to increase to 240 mg.
This is all so new and interesting to me. I was under stress right before and during. I am sending two children off to college in the fall and I was so stressing about where to send them. Their number one choice and my favorite too is the most expensive. So, I was (and still am) stressed about that. It is also hard to picture being an empty nester in the fall. So, my big bang happened during me stressing about that. What I find fascinating is that in in 2007-9, within 13 months I lost three of my closest family members. (A nephew and both my parents. My parents passed within 6 weeks of each other.) I just find it amazing that I was able to handle all of that and not this. The human mind and body is just amazing.