Flushed face, what could be wrong?

My boyfriend's weird headaches, sudden headache attack yesterday, face flushed, wtf?

• My boyfriend has these episodes where he gets a headache and dizziness/nausea at the same time. They are apparently so bad that he has to stop and lay down for hours until it goes away. I'm not sure if it's the head pain or the nausea that makes him need to lay down. Yesterday he got a sudden headache with dizziness on his way out the door. He drove 15 minutes to pick me up, made me drive him home, and then laid down for the rest of the night. Today I noticed that his face was kind of flushed. The first time I noticed he told me he was rubbing it. The second time it was just pinkish, and his eyes seemed a little pink too. He's 27, constantly stressed out, and we live in a moldy house. He is also underweight. Oh, he also has a tooth infection, his root canal appointment is not until later in the month. He will not go to the doctor about his headaches. I have urged him to go for almost a year and he never went. He has full insurance, I don't understand what his problem is. Even if I held a gun to his head, he would still not go. Is he going to die? Or worse...become mentally ill??

• Answer:

  What you're describing with a severe headache accompanied by dizziness and nausea is almost verbatim the description of a migraine. The cause could easily be the mold if he's allergic, and if he's often nauseated because of these migraines, it would explain being underweight (who eats when nauseated?) There are a couple of relatively large concerns I would have, primarily being that with an abscessed tooth, the abscess is liable to spread. However, if the dentist did X-Rays, he should be able to determine how long is too long to wait, and which antibiotics are best to use. I would be even more inclined to say the headaches are unrelated to the tooth problem if they were occurring before the dental issues. Headaches are always rather concerning, and a doctor should absolutely check him out, but since that seems not to be an option, it sounds like it's probably just migraines and excedrin and darkness will help the most. Also, trying your best to eliminate the mold problem (Use VERY hot soapy water and scrub like mad, then dry thoroughly) would be a good idea. Migraines leading to mental illness is something I haven't even heard of, so I wouldn't worry about that. As far as the rest goes, it's unfortunately difficult to say without an examination, and it sounds unlikely that without seeing a doctor that anything will change. Try fixing the mold problem, that's your best bet currently.