Janet Jackson’s mystery illness is vestibular migraine, publicist says

It started a couple of weeks ago when Janet Jackson had to cancel – at the last minute – a much anticipated concert here in Montreal. After being released from the Royal Victoria Hospital, statements were issued that Janet would resume her tour. Unfortunately, for her fans, this wasn’t the case as her mystery illness continued.

A release issued by her publicists now says that Janet has vestibular migraines, also called migraine-associated vertigo (dizziness). Vestibular migraines can be as painful and debilitating as so-called regular migraines, but they have the added discomfort of dizziness. People who have vestibular migraines usually have visual auras – flickers or flashes of lights or spots in front of the eyes – along with the dizziness that can start up to 15 minutes or so before the pain and other symptoms begin.

While it’s bad enough to have a migraine with the pain, nausea, increased sensitivity to different stimuli, when you throw dizziness into the mix, this can make life unbearable. While people with migraines may just want to curl up in a ball in the dark in bed, if they’re dizzy, that comfort isn’t even available to them.

Having suffered from migraines since I was a teen-ager, I feel badly for Janet. The pain is bad enough – I can’t imagine having vertigo on top of it.

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Tags: chronic pain blog, pain blog, janet jackson, janet jackson migraines, migraine, vestibular migraine, vertigo, photo janet jackson