Headaches Linked To Bowel Issues?

[TCP]

Has anyone with ME/Dysautonomia/EDS/POTS etc linked head pain with bowel issues?

Some years ago I knew that I had flushing and slight head pain when I was constipated and over the years as the nerve damage spread, I noticed that most of my headaches were linked to my bowel filling up and also with gas. They have worsened in recent months to include more eye pain and the headache has spread to include my face, too. I now get head and eye pain when I need to go to the loo and when my gut has gone into spasm afterwards. This spasm can last for many hours afterwards. I have tried anti-spamodics and I think that they made the problem worse. I have just been diagnosed as glaucoma suspect and that seems like a coincidence that the raised eye pressure and head/eye pain have come at the same time. The ophthalmologist says it's merely coincidence, but I'm not convinced as the head pain is worse on my left side, as my bowel, and the worst of the neuropathy is down that side of my body.

Does anyone else get this problem and if so what has been said by consultants etc?

[Katybug]

I have abdominal migraine which causes severe nausea, vomiting, gut spasms, and diarrhea. It sometimes comes with my migraine headaches and sometimes by itself. My migraine headaches usually involve significant gas and bloating with a mild bit of diarrhea if I'm not going to have full blown gi problems. I usually have to take Donnatal and Phenergan when I have an abdominal migraine to get things under control or they will last for up to 3 days and then I get severely dehydrated which of course brings on a whole other set of problems. Besides abdominal migraine, there is also cyclic vomiting syndrome and abdominal epilepsy that you might want to research and see if you should speak to your doctor about any of these. They all present similarly.

[Chaos]

I had noted a connection between headaches/migraines and my gut quite a few years ago. I mentioned it once to a licensed massage therapist who also had knowledge of oriental medicine. I said something about the headache causing the GI problems. His opinion was that it was probably the other way around and that the GI problems caused the HA. I haven't ever had a "western" medicine doc really acknowledge the two being linked other than to say that it's common to have nausea etc along with a migraine. They wouldn't ever acknowledge any causative correlation however. But I know there were times when HAs improved after things finally moved down below.

You might find more answers in this arena looking at complementary medicine ideas or seeing someone with a more "integrative medicine" approach vs a standard GI or neurologist.