Key points from today’s guests:
Denise Dunham, brain aneurysm patient
- Denise had a sudden, painful headache unlike she had ever had before and went to the ER in rural Missouri.
- It was diagnosed as migraine, but she knew it was something different.
- Four days later, she went back to the ER and was flown via medical helicopter to The University of Kansas Health System where she was diagnosed with a dangerous aneurysm.
- She underwent a new procedure that avoided traditional brain surgery to treat the aneurysm. She is thankful for this medical technology and calls in a miracle.
- Denise recommends that people advocate for their own health.
Dr. Koji Ebersole, director, Endovascular Surgery, The University of Kansas Health System
- An aneurysm is a weakness on the blood vessel wall. So if you have a weakness, your blood vessels balloon out. Typically, this takes years to happen, and it happens silently, because in the grand scheme of things, aneurysms in the brain are about the size of a pea, and the brain has no pain fibers, no sensory fibers. The brain has no idea that it's there.
- Brain aneurysms are much more common than you might think. Ten million people United States have them and the very vast majority will never experience an emergency like Denise.
- The brain and its environment is sensitive to blood, so as soon as a blood is spilled in the brain, even a small amount, it will lead to the worst headache you've ever had in your life, involving the whole head.
- Our job is to stop it from causing another event -- it's very hard to survive bleeding from an aneurysm more than once. So that is our goal, to confirm the location of the aneurysm to figure out how we can close it while keeping the surrounding blood vessels open to protect you from a stroke.
- We used an implant about the size of a peanut called “the web” in Denise’s head. A micro-catheter inserts this without the need for brain surgery.
- This new technique blocks blood flow to the aneurysm while allowing blood to flow to the vessels.
- Around 15 percent of the time, the aneurysm is related to family history. However, if you have an aunt or an uncle or grandfather that has an aneurysm, it doesn't meet the statistical criteria of a family inheritance. It needs to be two people directly related to each other in the family line that have an aneurysm before you meet that definition.
Tuesday August 20 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Learn about the first-ever test that catches Parkinson's early before symptoms appear, getting patients the chance to start treatment early.
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