WSVN — We all suffer headaches from time to time, but imagine living with headaches so painful you can’t even laugh or do the things you love. It happened to one young woman who battled every day until she finally found the cause of her "Hidden Headache." 7’s Lynn Martinez has the story.
Chonjah Trobridge will never forget the pain.
Chonjah Trobridge: "I was about 10, 11. "I’d get this throbbing pain in the back of my neck."
Almost any kind of movement would trigger it, even laughing!
Chonjah Trobridge: "Laughing, moving. If I looked down from my phone and I look up too fast."
By the time she was a teenager, Chonjah would come home from school every day and just lay on the couch.
Chonjah Trobridge: "I stopped going out with friends."
Her mom would try and get her up, but her daughter said the pain was too much to bear.
Chonjah Trobridge: "The throbbing, it was like you could hear the blood rushing to your head."
Her mom took her from doctor to doctor, but no one could figure out the cause.
Chonjah Trobridge: "It was irritating, it really was."
Headaches are common, but when the pain persists like Chonjah’s, or it’s localized to one area of the head, it can be a sign of something more serious.
Dr. Allen Kantrowitz, Mount Sinai Medical Center: "In particular, if there is a headache which is experienced in the back of the head where the neck meets the head."
Mount Sinai neurosurgeon Allen Kantrowitz ordered an MRI. After years of suffering, the results finally brought Chonjah a diagnosis. She was born with a condition called Chiari malformation.
Chonjah Trobridge: "An unusual shape to the bones at the back of the skull."
Most people are born with the skull deformity and the headaches can start when the lowest part of the brain begins to compete for space with the spinal cord.
Dr. Allen Kantrowitz: "As it gets wedged into this direction, it impacts this area of the brain."
If left untreated, the condition can be life-threatening.
Dr. Allen Kantrowitz: "You’ll see disturbances in heart rhythm, disturbances in breathing rhythm."
Chonjah needed surgery to reshape her skull.
Dr. Allen Kantrowitz: "Over here you can see that the space has been created."
When she woke up, the pain was gone.
Chonjah Trobridge: "I was like, oh my gosh, I don’t have a headache and it was just like, wow and I started crying."
Now Chonjah and her mom enjoy time together in the living room. She laughs a lot more, not having to worry about the hidden headache that robbed her of so many happy times.
Chonjah Trobridge: "Now I can live my life!"
Doctors say some people with this condition never suffer any symptoms and live a normal life.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Allen Kantrowitz, M.D., Mount Sinal Medical Center
(305) 674-2950
www.msmc.com/doctor/allen-b-kantrowitz
Chiari Malformation Fact Sheet
www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/chiari/detail_chiari.htm