Bad Headache When Lifting

[nevermore507]

Sorry if this belongs in a different thread.

Over the last week and a half or so I've been getting a really bad headache in the back of my head when lifting. Even during warm up sets. I feel it all over my head, but mostly in the back/right part of the ol noggin. I looked around on the net and found everything from muscle pulls to tumors.

Just had an MRI today, and they ruled out a tear in the durma, brain bleed and tumor. He thinks its an exertion headache, but on my last few workouts I made sure to concentrate on my breathing, making sure to exhale on the lift portion.

I also dont seem to get them when doing cardio.

Anyone else get these, or hear of anyone with them? Waiting for blood work to come back, but dont know how much longer I can stay away from the weights without going batty.

 

[SilentBob187]

I am happy to see that you are dealing with a doctor prior to coming to the board for information. Some folks seem to do the opposite which can lead down a dangerous path. I'm glad he's been able to rule out some of the more serious things.

Did you have your blood pressure taken? There are supplements out there that people take to support healthy blood pressure levels. Hawthorne, Cayenne, Fish Oil, and Garlic to name a few.

Let us know what the doctor determines from your blood work, lift safe!

 

[Chubbinmuffin]

Not meaning to sound like a jackass or patronize you by stating the obvious, but you're getting enough water right?

 

[killamac27]

I've actually just started having the same thing happen to me. Along with high blood pressure I believe it could be caused by caffeine. Do you take a pre-workout supp? If so try to wait a little bit before you go to the gym like 30-45 mins after you take it and see if your symtoms improve, or just don't take it and see if it comes back or not. I think mine was caused by doing a rest pause set on DB bench press, I tried to push out a couple extra reps and accidently moved my head a little bit. If you don't want to stay out of the gym this worked for me, try elevating your head a little bit. The only time I got the headaches were when I was doing squats and flat bench press. Make sure the bar isn't resting on your neck and keep your head up on squats and when your benching fold a towel up and rest your head on it while doing your sets to give it a very small incline so the blood doesn't rush up there. But I'm no doctor or certified personal trainer I'm just talking from my experiences. Good Luck.

 

[nevermore507]

1st off, thanks for the rep guys.

Chub, you don't sound like a JA at all. I thought the same, and made sure to drink plenty of water before and during the w/o, but it didn't appear to make much of a dif.

I never made it to my leg workout, but any of the upper body stuff resulted in the headaches (flat BP, curls, lat pulldown, 1h DB). It may be a pulled muscle in my neck, but dont have any neck pain whatsoever. Also did about 50 pushups last night with no pain. gonna try running after work today, and see where that takes me.

Also, my bp was 116 over 68, pulse was 68, Doc said this was normal.

 

[nevermore507]

Killa, I've been taking NO Shotgun for about 3-4 weeks now. I thought maybe the redline in it was giving me the headaches, and didn't take it during the last w/o. Still got the headaches doing warm up flat BP's. After getting the ache with no supps, thats when I figured I'd hit the doc.

 

[Liquid13]

This sounds like exertion headaches. Even if you breathe perfectly it does not mean you can't get them. I had this affect me for about 2 solid weeks with severe pain when lifting anything. There were a few times where I really thought I was in my last minutes of life, lmao. It hurts horribly! Then for another 2 weeks I still had pain, but was able to semi lift. I did not get them while running either. These things suck, and for the most part all you can do is wait it out. I would take a week off then test the waters. If it hurts still, then wait another week.
Are you getting this pain during sex as well?

 

[Zero V]

Our bodies are the most complex machines in the world. Biological and yet still driven by an osculating electro-pulse current.

Sometimes things run weird, I have had this happen once and it lasted almost a week. More water, fish oil, nothing helped. It just went away on its own.

 

[nevermore507]

This sounds like exertion headaches. Even if you breathe perfectly it does not mean you can't get them. I had this affect me for about 2 solid weeks with severe pain when lifting anything. There were a few times where I really thought I was in my last minutes of life, lmao. It hurts horribly! Then for another 2 weeks I still had pain, but was able to semi lift. I did not get them while running either. These things suck, and for the most part all you can do is wait it out. I would take a week off then test the waters. If it hurts still, then wait another week.
Are you getting this pain during sex as well?

I was afraid for a bit they;d be carting me out of the gym also. This Sat will be a week, so hoping to hit the gym then and give it a shot. And no, no headaches during sex. Doc asked me the same thing.

 

[l0ck]

I experienced bad head aches while doing heavy bench press the couple of times I tried one of those redline energy drinks.. It would just keep getting worse and worse as you pushed through your workout until you stopped because you cant focus anymore because of the brain splitting head ache.. and then you would have to wait for hours for it to go away.. was really painful and ruined a few of my work outs.. Never drank that stuff again, felt like my brain was splitting open from behind or something, just non stop pounding for hours..

It still continued to happen for a week or two after I tried those redline drinks.. After the first couple of episodes I went to the doc and told him about everything, he assumed it was high blood pressure from the start, however when he took my blood pressure, my pressures were fine.. he then scheduled a MRI, everything was fine, but he ended up giving me some high blood pressure med (benicar HCT) samples in case it occurred again, which it did, in which case I took the medicine and the head ache went away within 20 mins or so and it hasn't happened in a couple of years since I took that sample of benicar, and I think those samples are expired by now so I hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon..

 

[nevermore507]

OK, so went and did legs last night, and no headache. Didnt too too much, but had a 1/2 way decent w/o with no issues. Also tried a flat bench using wamr up weight and no headache there either. Hoping to try back and bi's tomorrow and see whats up.

 

[dropshot001]

OK, so went and did legs last night, and no headache. Didnt too too much, but had a 1/2 way decent w/o with no issues. Also tried a flat bench using wamr up weight and no headache there either. Hoping to try back and bi's tomorrow and see whats up.

good to hear, hope it continues

 

[shotdead42]

OMG, i had mine like a month ago.. HOLY CRAP did it hurt... it was like behind my head and it was hurting like craazy....i did some net search on mine and like found out it was maybe a external headache or something...

i took a few days off and it kept coming back... i just went to breathe better during my reps and it went away. just get plenty of rest, tahts wut i did.

best of luck, i can still remeber the pain... omg it was so bad..

 

[StuartGould]

Yep certainly sounds like exertion headaches. Actually very common and can start for no apparent reason even after years of similar exercise.

Cause not fully understood but intracranial pressure a complex relationship between fluid in the brain matter itself, cerebrospinal fluid pressure and volume of blood in the arteries and veins. So if the latter distend and the other two decrease there is a net increase in intracranial volume and the rigid skul;l does not give way (obviously!) so produces this "bursting " pain. So does anything else that raises intracranial pressure, such as ruptured berry aneurysm, subarachnoid haemorrhage, intraventricular or bleed into the brain tissue itself.

MRI pretty much excludes all these nasties and brain tumours to boot.

Usually goes away in a week or two. I have been there and had exactly the same at the end of a set of squats. Being in a somewhat priviledged position and working in a hospital got my ass straight down the MRI even though bleeds are usually associated with neck stifness, photophobia, drowsiness, nausea etc. Not taking no chances.

V important to keep breathing during heavy lifts as we all know - reason is BP can rise dramatically with positive abdominal and thoracic pressure - translated to head and any weak spots in vessels more likely to give way.

On a lighter note also not uncommon at orgasm (although not often discussed in the pub)!!

Hope that helps