'It felt like 6 bottles of wine': Woman thought she had a hangover, but it was a brain tumour—Here's her story
"It felt like I'd drunk six bottles of wine," recalls 43-year-old Lucy Woodhouse, describing the debilitating headache she mistook for a hangover. But what she thought was the aftermath of a night out turned out to be far more serious. During a routine check-up, Lucy received the shocking news that she had a brain tumor. Now, she's bravely sharing her story to raise awareness and encourage others to pay attention to their symptoms.
Lucy Woodhouse, a nurse by profession, first noticed symptoms around December 2023.?
A mother of three, she says she began experiencing severe headaches that felt like intense hangovers.?
"One night, while reading a story to my five-year-old, I could read the words but couldn't say them. Something was wrong between my eyes and mouth. It felt like I'd drunk six bottles of wine. They were disabling headaches – I would be doubled up on all fours on my bed rocking and trying to get rid of it," she recalls, as quoted by New York Post.
During a meeting with colleagues, Lucy found herself unable to understand what was being said. "I was in a senior meeting at work and it felt like I didn't understand anything anyone was saying. I'm usually quite on the ball, but they might as well have been speaking Chinese," says Lucy, who hails from Hereford.
She went to the doctor on February 19 this year after experiencing a particularly bad headache.
The nurse at the GP surgery noticed she was blinking unevenly and sent her to the local hospital for a CT scan. Following the scan and an MRI, doctors soon informed her she had a brain tumor.
Lucy believes the tumor is linked to the Depo-Provera contraceptive injection, rounds of IVF she had, and HRT medication—all of which contain the hormone progesterone.?
She had the progesterone Mirena coil inserted in 2021 when she started HRT medication, which doctors have now advised her to stop taking due to connections to meningioma tumors.
Meningiomas, the most common type of brain tumor, are mostly non-cancerous and nearly twice as common in females as in males.?
"Go and get your eyes tested. Depending on where it is, opticians can spot it. If you're experiencing unusual headaches, you need to get them checked out. And if you're a woman who has had a lot of hormone treatment, multiple rounds of IVF, or HRT, given the strong link, you should go and get a scan," she advises.
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