CM – When does a throbbing headache actually signal a brain tumor?

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If you have a pounding headache for no apparent reason, you are probably assuming that you haven’t had enough water, haven’t slept well, or have muscle tension that you are holding onto due to stress.

Eventually The causes of headaches and migraines range from eating food to spending too much time in front of the computer screen (guilty!). But if this pain continues, feels severe, or comes back often, it’s only normal to wonder if it might be indicative of something more serious.

Take a deep breath: Chances are, even if you can’t overcome a teenage tear without seeing someone (usually young, female, and pretty) die tragically from the disease, your headache is not a brain tumor .

While headaches are sometimes one of the symptoms of a brain tumor, the chances are, as a surprisingly hot Arnold Schwarzenegger put it in Kindergarten Cop in 1990: « It’s not a Toomah! »

« Headaches are incredibly common, and brain tumors are incredibly common are incredibly rare, ”said Cameron Brennan, MD, neurosurgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. « About five out of every 100,000 people are diagnosed with some type of brain tumor each year, while every seventh person reports a migraine every year. »

Migraines are just one of the causes of headaches. Tension headaches, cluster headaches, and simple but annoying caffeine withdrawal or fatigue headaches send many people to Starbucks or the medicine cabinet for pain relievers every day.

Regardless of whether it is a headache or none, your lifetime risk is for a malignant brain or spinal cord tumor less than 1%, according to the American Cancer Society. And while « Yay, I have a brain tumor » isn’t something you will likely ever hear, most primary brain tumors (more than two-thirds) aren’t cancerous, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. (A primary brain tumor is a brain tumor that, unlike breast cancer or lung cancer, for example, originates in the brain and has spread to the brain and would have had many other signs before a headache.) So that headache is the tell-tale symptom of a primary brain tumor , they must be pretty tall, says neuro-oncologist Alyx Porter, MD, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and co-chair of the Central Nervous System Disease Group. « The skull is a fixed space and only allows the brain, the cerebrospinal fluid and the blood, » she says.

In addition, the brain itself cannot recognize pain. « If there’s anything left in it, it creates pressure [on the nerves of the blood vessels] so a tumor would have to get quite large before you feel intracranial pressure, » says Dr. Porter.

All of this means that headache is rarely the first or only symptom of a primary brain tumor. « It’s much more common for people to have other neurological symptoms, » possibly along with a headache, says Dr. Porter. These include seizures, blurred vision, weakness on one side of the body, slurred speech. You would probably know something is wrong before you got a severe headache.

Also, benign brain tumors tend to grow slowly, and while they’re not fun, sometimes they don’t need to be removed depending on how bothersome the symptoms are. « Benign tumors are often completely curable or controllable over a long natural life, » says Dr. Brennan.

Even a malignant brain tumor does not always play out like it does in a film. « For the worst of the worst brain tumors we see, there is a wide range of predictions and a wide range of how well people can handle them, » says Dr. Brennan.

It feels pretty much the same as any other headache, especially a migraine, says Dr. Brennan. « There is not a single pattern that distinguishes a brain tumor headache from the range of normal headaches people can get, » he says, adding that brain tumors are about taking up space in the skull, anything that causes the pressure in the head increased can trigger headaches attributable to a brain tumor. “Sneeze, laugh, bend over – something like that. But these things can also make normal headaches worse. ”

However, a headache caused by a brain tumor is unlikely to occur during the day, says Dr. Porter, and you can wake up at night or early in the morning. But that alone wouldn’t be the biggest red flag: Neurological symptoms are a much bigger cause for concern next to headaches.

When friends or family Dr. Asking Brennan’s advice when they have a headache, he asks a few questions, even if the headache has been around for a long time. « This suggests that although the symptoms can be terrible – the longer it lasts, the more likely it is a benign headache. »

When you suddenly have the worst headache If you have ever had, or if these are accompanied by neck pain, vomiting, high fever, difficulty speaking, confusion or numbness or weakness, go to the emergency room as there are a number of things that may be causing this that require immediate attention .

But even if it’s not an emergency, if you’ve never had a migraine before, if it feels different than a migraine you’ve had in the past, or if it hangs around for a few days and OTC pain relievers don’t seem like it ‘to help, why not get checked? Your doctor will likely order an advanced imaging test like a CT or MRI to make sure everything looks normal, says Dr. Porter.

Conclusion: You don’t have to live with the pain. If a headache is interfering with your day-to-day life, see your doctor or a specialist such as a neurologist to find out what’s going on – since it’s likely something other than a tumor.