Michele Bachmann suffers from migraines, but campaign disputes severity

Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann’s campaign said Tuesday that the candidate suffers from migraines, but disputed a report that said some attacks were debilitating.

“Like millions of Americans, Congresswoman Bachmann suffers with migraines and they are under control when treated with medication,” campaign press secretary Alice Stewart toldCNN.

The Daily Caller, created by Tucker Carlson as the right-leaning alternative to the Huffington Post, reported Monday evening that Bachmann “frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can ‘incapacitate’ her for days at a time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.”

One such episode, the story says, took place last year, when Bachmann’s then-communications director told her he was resigning. She ended up in a D.C. hospital.

The story, which relies on anonymous sources, also recounts two other episodes last year in which the Minnesota congresswoman supposedly suffered incapacitating attacks.

Stewart took issue with the story’s characterization of the episodes as debilitating, but was not specific.

“The information you have is incorrect,” she told the Daily Caller. Stewart has not responded to a request for comment from the Los Angeles Times.

“When she gets ‘em, frankly, she can’t function at all. It’s not like a little thing with a couple Advils. It’s bad,” the article quotes a former advisor to Bachmann’s 2010 congressional campaign as saying. “The migraines are so bad and so intense, she carries and takes all sorts of pills. Prevention pills. Pills during the migraine. Pills after the migraine, to keep them under control. She has to take these pills wherever she goes.”

The sources came forward, the story said, over concerns how the condition might affect Bachmann during the presidential campaign and if she should become president.