Woman discovers she had blood clots in her brain and a stroke after breakup triggered migraine

A woman has opened up about how crying over a breakup triggered a migraine that led doctors to discover two blood clots in her brain, saying she unknowingly had a minor stroke the week before and could have died.

Liv, 24, from Texas, shared an abbreviated version of her shocking story in a now-viral video that has been viewed more than 486,000 times on TikTok, where she goes by the handle @bake_you_acake.

“Once I cried so much over a broken heart that I got a migraine that lasted two weeks and actually gave me a stroke at the age of 20,” he wrote in on-screen text.

He shared a shortened version of his 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 a stroke until she passed out and was taken to the hospital for a CT scan.

‘I had two blood clots in a major vein in my brain, and my doctor said he was surprised I didn’t have a major stroke and die due to the placement of them… all [because] a boy didn’t love me,” he concluded.

Liv clarified in a follow-up video that she “didn’t end up in hospital with a broken heart”, saying doctors believe her birth control had caused the blood clots and subsequent stroke.

“Yes, the crying over the breakup caused the migraine, but they think the blood clots had been going on for a while,” he explained. “I just didn’t know about it.”

Liv clarified in a follow-up video that she “didn’t end up in hospital with a broken heart”, saying doctors believe her birth control had caused the blood clots and subsequent stroke.

“Yes, the crying over the breakup caused the migraine, but they think the blood clots had been going on for a while,” he explained. ‘I just didn’t know about it’

A transient ischemic attack (TIA), often called a mini-stroke, is caused by a temporary blockage in blood flow to the brain.

It differs from a complete stroke in that its effects are short-lived. Typically, these hits last a few minutes and leave no permanent damage.

Liv, who was a student at Texas A&M University at the time, recalled how she “cried so much” after their breakup that “her head started to hurt so bad” and the pain wouldn’t go away.

She went to the ER and was given painkillers, but it did not relieve her constant migraine.

Another week passed and she was having dinner at her friend’s house when she suddenly felt like everything was in slow motion, like she was under a strobe light.

Liv’s father took her to the emergency room after she nearly passed out, and a CT scan showed she had two blood clots in a major vein in her brain.

The doctor was surprised that she did not have a major stroke, and they immediately took her off her birth control and put her on blood thinners.

“I remember saying, ‘Oh, gosh, my head is really killing me,'” she said.

Liv drove home and suddenly found herself in Bryan, Texas, a small town just outside of College Station, where her school’s campus is located.

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know my name. I had a major panic attack. I freaked out for two minutes, and then I snapped out of it,” she said. “Literally this whole side of my body felt like it was sinking in, but it wasn’t. I looked in the mirror. There was nothing there, but it felt heavy, like my cheeks and everything.

Liv texted her ex and told him she thought he “just had a stroke,” but he convinced her he was fine. When she went home the following week, her doctor gave her a medication to treat her migraine, but it still wouldn’t go away.

“I remember I was crying, kind of sobbing crying in my bed, and my dad came into the room and he was like, ‘Are you fucking depressed?'” she explained. “And I was like, ‘No, I have a headache.'”

Liv had already missed two weeks of school by this time, and her father told her that she had to go back to College Station or she would fail all of her classes.

However, when she went downstairs, she nearly passed out. That’s when he took her to the ER and she knew she’d been right about everything.

“The doctor was so casual,” he said. “He told me, ‘Oh yeah, I know what the problem is. You have two blood clots in your brain in a major vein… you had a minor stroke.”

Liv thinks the blood clots and stroke were caused by her birth control, but no one knows for sure.

The estrogen in birth control pills is known to cause blood clots that can lead to a stroke, and women who take oral contraceptives are double the odds to 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 that the risk is high, especially among women without other risk factors, such as smoking addiction and a history of hypertension.

‘Everything was weird. They still have no idea what caused it,” Liv explained. “I was put on blood thinners, scream Xarelto, and after that, I literally had no migraines. So they think it could have been going on my whole life and I had no idea.

Liv said the ‘crazy’ thing was that she took birth control when she was 15 to stop her migraines, but the oral contraceptive only made them worse.

She added that she was supposed to have surgery to remove the blood clots, which have gotten much smaller thanks to blood thinners, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“So I’m still trying to figure that out,” he said.