I felt hung over and thought everyone was speaking a different language: Turns out I had a brain tumor

A nurse was diagnosed with a brain tumor which made her think people were speaking a different language – and she blames it on taking HRT.

Lucy Woodhouse, 43, says she experienced severe headaches which felt like hangovers and struggled to read aloud.

But then in a meeting with colleagues she found herself unable to understand what they were saying, and tests revealed she had a golf ball-sized tumor.

She says she believes the meningioma 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 says she had the Depo-Provera injection multiple times in 1997, and in 2013 underwent three rounds of IVF over two years.

She had the progesterone Mirena coil inserted in 2021 when she started HRT medication – which doctors have now told her not to take because of connections to meningioma tumors, she says.

Meningiomas, the most common type of brain tumor, are a mostly non-cancerous brain tumor and are nearly twice as common in females as males.

In 2013, scientists from the Danish Cancer Research Centre found a link between post-menopausal hormone treatment HRT and meningioma.

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Meningiomas are also commonly found among women who are pregnant or having fertility treatment, as oestrogen can interact with the tumor and potentially make it grow faster according to a 2012 study.

And a study published in the British Medical Journal this year found prolonged use of certain progesterone medications was linked to a greater risk of meningioma.

According to the NHS website, it is common to have no side effects after taking HRT but is has been associated with a small increase in the risk of cancer.

Nurse Lucy, from Hereford, said: “I was sat in a senior meeting at work and I just 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.

“I thought they were speaking a different language.

“One night I was reading a story to my five-year-old and I could read the words but I couldn’t say them, something was going wrong between my eyes and mouth.

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“I started HRT two years before my brain tumor diagnosis – I think the meningioma was feeding off the oestrogen and progesterone.

“Every time I got a headache it was an hour after I fell asleep and then it would linger into the next day.

“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.”

The mum-of-three first started noticing symptoms around December 2023 and first went to the doctors on 19 February this year after experiencing a particularly bad headache while visiting London.

She says in retrospect there were symptoms six months prior – but she put it down to being a tired mum.

She asked to try migraine tablets, but the nurse in the GP surgery noticed she was blinking unevenly, and she was sent to her local hospital for a CT scan.

Following the scan, she was told by doctors they’d found something troubling and she was blue-lighted to The Grange in Cwmbran where she was told she had a brain tumor following an MRI.

She was then sent to University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff where she the consultant told her they were taking a “watch and wait” approach.

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However, Lucy says she sort out a second opinion from a private brain surgeon in London and was told they would operate immediately.

In May, she underwent major surgery to remove the tumor – which was growing just three millimetres from her optical nerve and could have caused her to go blind.

Now, she says she’s recovering well but still struggles with her memory at times.

“I’ve got a scar now, but I’m doing really well,” said Lucy, “I’ve got some bald patches and my memory isn’t amazing.

“When I was diagnosed I was beside myself and one of the hardest things was telling the kids – that was really difficult.

“My risk of seizure was very high, what worried me is I could have been driving on the motorway with my kids in the car and had a seizure.

“Go and get your eyes tested, depending on where it is opticians can spot it.

“If you’re having headaches you don’t normally get with unusual presentation, you need to get it checked out.

“And if you’re a woman who has had a lot of hormone treatment, multiple rounds of IVF or HRT or been pumped full of hormones for whatever reason – given that strong link you should go and get a scan.”

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