You were traveling to visit family when a semitruck struck your SUV. You were fortunate to be in a larger vehicle, but you still ended up hitting your head and suffering from a few broken bones.
Initially, you were taken to the hospital for a concussion, but your health continued to deteriorate. You were rushed into surgery. Much later, your family was informed that you had suffered a traumatic aneurysm.
Traumatic aneurysms are complications of a head and brain injury caused by an impact or penetrating injury. They can happen in severe closed head injury cases or be caused by a penetrating wound in a car crash. In cases where the skull is intact, the aneurysm can occur because of torsion or the stretching of the intracranial vessel.
How common are traumatic aneurysms?
Traumatic aneurysms are not a common form of aneurysm, but if they are present, they have to be treated as an emergency. They are at a heightened risk of growing larger and rupturing. The surgery needed to treat a brain aneurysm can be a high-risk surgery depending on where it is.
Medically speaking, you can have a true, false or mixed aneurysm. When the who artery balloons, it’s a true aneurysm. When the inner tissues have ruptured but are contained in an outer layer of the vessel’s membrane, it may be called a false aneurysm.
It doesn’t matter which form you have. Each one is dangerous and needs to be treated quickly after it’s discovered.
What are the symptoms of a brain aneurysm?
After a crash, you may notice that you have a headache. Since the headache is the main symptoms of an aneurysm and may also be present because of hitting your head, it’s important to let your medical team know if your headache is worsening.
The headache may cause other symptoms such as nausea, changes in vision or vomiting, depending on how badly the brain is bleeding. Depending on where the aneurysm is, you may also have pain and stiffness in the neck. In some instances, patients have symptoms similar to a stroke, such as dilated pupils, changes in vision, and weakness or numbness on one side of the face.
Your brain injury is a somewhat rare form of aneurysm, but there is support available. This injury needs to be treated quickly and correctly to help you have the best chance of a full recovery.