Contents:
- Medical Video: Symptoms of Stroke and Migraine | Cedars-Sinai
- What is the relationship between headache and stroke?
- Stroke, headache, and genetic factors
- Should I worry about a stroke if I often suffer from headaches?
- How do you distinguish headaches caused by abnormal blood vessels or those due to brain bleeding?
Medical Video: Symptoms of Stroke and Migraine | Cedars-Sinai
Sometimes headaches can be very painful, so it's not surprising that many people worry that the headaches they experience are actually symptoms of stroke.
What is the relationship between headache and stroke?
There is a connection between headaches and strokes because both affect the same part of the body. However, headaches are usually not dangerous. About 10-15% of people who have had a stroke will experience a new headache after a stroke.
Estimates of adults who suffer from routine headaches range from 30-60%. Few of the headache sufferers progressed to stroke, but there was a slight increase in stroke among people who suffered from severe headaches compared to those who never had severe headaches.
Stroke, headache, and genetic factors
Headaches, whether it's migraines, fatigue caused by headaches, or the use of excessive headache medications usually don't cause strokes. Many scientific studies have investigated the presence or absence of a relationship between headache and stroke.
Headaches and second strokes are a condition that is influenced by heredity, which means that some people at high risk have it due to genetic factors. Some of the same genes can also increase the risk of migraine headaches. Even when hereditary factors play a role in migraines and strokes, headaches usually do not occur with stroke. What does this mean for migraine sufferers? The point is that it is important to understand stroke risk factors and maintain proper medical care related to stroke risk factors to avoid strokes.
Should I worry about a stroke if I often suffer from headaches?
At most times, the symptoms of a stroke consist of weakness, changes in vision, numbness, confusion, or difficulty speaking. Headaches are usually not a sign of a delayed stroke.
However, there are also types of strokes that occur not because of lack of blood flow to the brain, but from bleeding in blood vessels in the brain. This is called a bleeding stroke, and is a stroke that causes bleeding, usually originating from an abnormal blood vessel. Bleeding will damage and damage brain tissue, also causes a lack of blood received by the brain (because blood vessel bleeding cannot drain blood where it should be if there is a leak).
How do you distinguish headaches caused by abnormal blood vessels or those due to brain bleeding?
Headaches that are a sign of stroke are rare. There are only about 1-3% of patients who enter the emergency room because of a headache that turns out to be a stroke. In one of the studies in the British Medical Journal, nearly 2000 patients who entered the emergency room due to severe headaches will carry out an examination of strokes. Most patients complain that the headaches that make them enter the emergency room are the worst headaches they have ever felt as long as they live. A study then evaluates other symptoms that occur together with these severe headaches. The majority of headache patients diagnosed with bleeding strokes also complain of other symptoms. A patient with a severe headache will be suspected of having a bleeding stroke if:
- He is more than 40 years old (generally headaches rarely develop after the age of 40 years, and therefore headaches that begin at the age of 40 years must be immediately examined)
- Loss of consciousness
- Pain or stiffness in the neck
- Throws up
- Blood pressure more than 160/100
- Headaches are triggered due to physical fatigue
- Riba in the emergency room with an ambulance
Although there is a weak link between headaches and strokes, it is generally safe to say that headaches are not an indication of stroke. However, if you experience the above symptoms, you should immediately seek medical help.
