I often have headaches - could this be a symptom of a brain tumor?

Brain tumors are difficult to diagnose. They are characterized by late symptoms, especially if the tumor is localized in less critical parts of the brain, where by the time the diagnosis is made it reaches a large size. Headache and dizziness may be the first symptoms of the disease. To diagnose brain tumors, the Yusupov Hospital uses the latest neuroimaging techniques. The patient is examined using equipment from leading global manufacturers. All cases of brain tumors are discussed at a meeting of the Expert Council with the participation of professors and doctors of the highest category.

The development of a tumor often leads to subtle changes in the patient's physical condition, personality, or coordination of movements. If the tumor develops in critical parts of the brain, the following symptoms can help make an early diagnosis:

• convulsions;
• ataxia;
• loss of sensorimotor reactions.

Doctors at the Yusupov Hospital conduct a comprehensive examination of patients with headaches and tinnitus, identifying danger signals that may be a manifestation of a brain tumor. How does a headache with a brain tumor hurt? The headache can be dull, occur at night or in the morning, and be located on one side of the head.

What to look out for in case of brain cancer

A cancerous brain tumor does not metastasize, that is, secondary foci. However, already in the early stages of the development of the process, the patient begins to feel its signs. The following symptoms of trouble should alert you:

• progressive impairment of speech function;
• disturbances in coordination of movements;
• constant fainting;
• chronic headaches. Remember that headaches with a brain tumor are constant. They do not subside after taking analgesics, which are usually found in our home medicine cabinet. This phenomenon should be more alarming than others;
• the occurrence of hallucinations of various types. Most often, a person feels the constant presence of a certain odor.

Causes and risks of tumor appearance

The causes of primary brain tumors are quite difficult to establish and are not possible in all patients.

But doctors have identified some factors that may increase the risk of this disease, including:

• Exposure to radiation. People exposed to ionizing radiation (eg, radiation therapy for cancer, radiation from atomic bombs, etc.) have an increased risk of brain tumors.
• Family history of brain tumors. A small proportion of brain tumors occur in people who have a family history of brain tumors or genetic syndromes that increase the risk of developing a tumor.
• Age. Despite the fact that tumors can occur at any age, they still occur more often in children and the elderly.
• Floor. In general, men are more susceptible to this type of tumor than women. But some specific types of tumors, such as meningioma, are more common in women.

In addition, research is currently also being conducted on the relationship between the occurrence of tumors and the effects of such factors:

• chemicals (solvents, pesticides, petroleum products, etc.);
• infections, viruses, allergens;
• electromagnetic fields;
• head injuries and seizures;
• race and ethnicity.

In general, a risk factor is anything that increases the likelihood of developing a brain tumor. Knowing your risk factors can help you and your doctor detect the tumor early.

The nature of headache during a tumor

Headache during brain tumors is significantly different from others. Not only is it permanent and does not go away after strong enough painkillers. It is oppressive in nature. In some cases it is quite intense. The headache intensifies in the following cases:

• exercise stress;
• sharp bends of the body;
• cough;
• abdominal muscle tension.

The headache is also worse in the morning. This occurs as a result of the fact that huge amounts of fluid accumulate in the brain tissue overnight.

Such pain also has warning signs. Usually they are nausea. In addition to such characteristics as intensity and duration, the patient can also describe his sensations this way:

• the pain seems to “pulsate” in the head”;
• after waking up the sensations are the strongest;
• confusion of consciousness and speech is often noted;
• migraine symptoms are completely absent;
• Sometimes the painful sensation is complemented by dizziness, decreased sensitivity of certain parts of the body, mental disorders, and signs of depression.

The pain is always different

No two pain syndromes are the same. Pain that is identical in its anatomical and physiological characteristics is psychologically perceived individually by each person. This is explained by genetic characteristics of psychological perception and upbringing. The pain of a person who has lost hope for a cure and the help of specialists is stronger than that of someone who still believes in a personal bright future. Women endure more pain than men. But not all women perceive the intensity of pain in the same way; some pampered ladies add a lot of emotions to a little pain.

But the same person also experiences different pain at different times. At night the pain is worse because there are no distractions from daytime life, the person suffers alone, and being sick alone is always worse. Changes in atmospheric pressure can intensify the sensation; high humidity does not help either. Lack of sleep and nervousness can make the pain stronger or weaker, while the intensity of the pain has not fundamentally changed. Anticipation of pain also plays a role in intensifying it. Each day with pain is different from the previous and subsequent ones.

The intensity of pain is determined by the sufferer himself. Of course, his sensations cannot correspond to reality, but this perception is dictated to him by his own threshold of pain sensitivity, his own emotionality. Some people exaggerate the pain, others downplay it, but the truth is that pain of any intensity causes a person to suffer in body and soul.

What to do for headaches

If you notice any alarming symptoms, the first thing you should do is visit a doctor. Under no circumstances should you buy painkillers for yourself. There is no need to trust your precious health to healers.

Remember that only early diagnosis of brain tumors will significantly increase the likelihood of successful treatment.

Clinical Brain Institute Rating: 5/5 — 4 votes

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How pain is treated

Any tumor pain forces restrictions on activity and movement. But acute pain goes away, and chronic pain does not allow you to do the usual and necessary things, it can put you to bed and completely immobilize you so that movements do not cause increased pain.

It's not always possible to completely relieve chronic pain, but you can't help but try to reduce it:

• therapeutic effect on the disease that caused it;
• drug-induced increase in the threshold of pain sensitivity;
• anesthetic blockades of pain-conducting nerve endings;
• psychological support for the patient;
• changing the patient’s lifestyle to one that gives fewer reasons for increased pain.

Treatment of pain cannot be reduced only to taking painkillers. But drug therapy, nevertheless, must be correct and adequate. Since metastases, especially bone ones, cannot be removed, they cause constant pain over time. In this case, pain can be relieved not only with analgesics, but also with chemotherapy, bisphosphonates, and radioactive drugs. There are options for a variety of pain therapy not only for bone lesions.

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Drug therapy

The main goal of drug exposure is to quickly and reliably achieve an analgesic effect. The World Health Organization offers several stages of pain treatment, at each of which certain groups of drugs are used, starting with those that are quite effective in most patients and low-toxic, gradually moving to drugs with a large number of adverse reactions. When choosing the type of pain relief, the degree of suffering and the impact of pain on the quality of life must be taken into account.

5 recommendations for patients and their loved ones

1. If the intensity of chronic pain syndrome increases, you should not simultaneously use drugs from the same group to treat pain; the effect is unlikely to increase, but adverse reactions are guaranteed to be greater in volume and severity. For example, it is not advisable to combine diclofenac and ibuprofen or voltaren. It is necessary to choose a drug from a different pharmacological group.
2. A narcotic analgesic does not always become a panacea. For example, pain in the intestines is better relieved by antispasmodics or drugs combined with them, bone pain responds well to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), neurological pain is little sensitive to drugs, and the NSAID Ketorol helps.
3. In some cases, the prescription of drugs with NSAIDs is required.
4. If the painkiller does not relieve pain at all after 12 hours, then you either need to increase its dose or change the drug.
5. It is always necessary to treat concomitant pathological symptoms that do not cause pain on their own, but aggravate psychological discomfort and physical suffering. For example, eliminate constipation or heartburn.

Principles of pain treatment

• The effect of the medicine is not always the same; it depends on your mood, time of day, presence of loved ones nearby, even on the weather. The approach to prescribing pain medication is individual.
• Standard sequences for prescribing pain medications have been developed that have shown effectiveness in thousands of patients; they must be followed. The time for experimentation will come later, but before that it is necessary to use what has been accumulated by mankind and has proven its effectiveness and benefit.
• If sensitivity to a drug is lost, they move on to a stronger drug; the choice of a drug similar in activity is incorrect.
• At any stage, auxiliary - adjuvant drugs, including those affecting the central nervous system, can be added to the drugs of the standard sequence.
• Pain is easier to prevent than to eliminate, so the interval between taking an analgesic depends on the duration of pain relief. The medicine should be taken before pain occurs.
• If necessary, the medicine must be taken earlier than planned.
• The best remedies are those that are easy to take - tablets or rectal suppositories. Injections are inconvenient; they are used when tablets are ineffective.

All these principles are used in the treatment of pain syndrome by Euroonco doctors. We are proficient not only in medicinal pain relief for cancer patients, but also in the entire known range of surgical and non-invasive (without damaging the skin) pain treatment methods. Euroonco will help you live better and with less pain.

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Why early diagnosis is so important

A feature of tumor processes localized in brain tissue is their location in the space limited by the walls of the skull (intracranial). Because of this, even a benign tumor after a certain time becomes life-threatening for the patient, since its growth leads to compression of cerebral tissues and an increase in intracranial pressure.

According to medical statistics, brain tumors account for about 6% of all tumor pathologies detected by oncologists. Out of every 100 thousand people, 10-15 patients are diagnosed with a cerebral tumor. However, existing methods of treating cerebral oncological diseases can guarantee a patient's life extension by more than 10 years only in the first stage of the disease. An operation performed at the second stage of tumor development prolongs the patient’s life by 5-10 years. When a tumor is detected in the third and fourth stages of the disease, the prognosis is almost always disappointing.

To exclude an unfavorable outcome, it is necessary to undergo an annual check-up of your health status. Modern diagnostic equipment allows you to detect pathological neoplasms even before you develop warning symptoms. The examination will help identify a health problem at a stage when it can be successfully eliminated. Don’t give the disease the slightest chance to defeat you, do a check-up right tomorrow.

Stages

Staging is a determination of where the cancer is located, whether and where it has spread, and its effect on other parts of the body.

Doctors use diagnostic tests to determine the stage of cancer; they may need information based on tissue samples obtained at surgery, so staging may continue until all tests are completed. Information about the stage helps the doctor determine which treatment is optimal and predict the possibility of recovery.

TNM tumor classification system

One way to determine the stage of cancer is the TNM system. Doctors use the results of diagnostic tests and scans to answer questions such as:

• Tumor (T): its size and location?
• Lymph nodes (N): extent of spread of the process to the lymph nodes?
• Metastasis (M): Has the cancer spread to other parts of the body?

The results are combined to determine each patient's cancer stage. Stage provides a common way to describe cancer so doctors can work together to plan the best treatment.

Treatment of cancer in Anadolu

The main treatment method is surgery to remove the tumor. Small tumors are eliminated using microsurgical methods under the control of computer navigation. Large formations require craniotomy with opening of the skull. Malignant tumors in the pituitary gland can be removed through the nasal passages. One of the popular modern methods is stereotactic radiosurgery without harm to healthy cells, which is performed using the most precise equipment: Varian Edge (new generation TureBeam) or CyberKnife. Our clinic is equipped with a unique hybrid operating room.

Chemotherapy for brain cancer or radiation irradiation of the tumor can be used as auxiliary techniques.

Medical provides patients with a level of service that meets all international standards. Unlike domestic institutions, our clinic helps patients with any type of cancer, including complex and advanced cases of its development. Doctors with professionalism and an individual approach to each patient achieve impressive results. At the same time, the cost of a treatment course is significantly lower than in other world medical centers, which does not in any way affect the quality of services.

A brain tumor is a malignant formation that requires early and accurate diagnosis, as well as complex neurosurgical surgery. This is one of the most dangerous diseases in medicine, which can lead to irreversible disorders of brain activity. Considering the seriousness of the problem, it is better to contact a foreign clinic, which is significantly superior in its capabilities to domestic institutions. This will ensure that treatment of a brain tumor will lead to a significant improvement in the patient’s well-being.

Qualified medical assistance from doctors allows you to promptly identify pathology and select the most effective health course. The high level of development of medicine increases the chances of recovery even in the most difficult cases.

Diagnosis in half an hour

After examination by a neurologist, at the second stage of the examination, hardware methods are used: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT). These diagnostic methods are not an alternative, but a mutual complement to each other. MRI is the most informative study in the diagnosis of intracranial space-occupying lesions, and CT is more valuable in acute situations, such as hemorrhage and traumatic brain injury.

Both of these methods are completely painless. During an MRI, the patient is placed on a special table, which then slides inside a cylindrical dome, where an electromagnetic field is created. The patient is only required to remain still for half an hour while the device takes the necessary readings.

With CT, much the same thing happens in a shorter period of time, but instead of a dome, a large ring is used. However, while MRI is an absolutely safe method from the point of view of radiation exposure to the body, the same cannot be said about CT. Therefore, you should not resort to it too often.

MRI can detect not only tumor processes, but also vascular pathologies, so this method is the most preferable when diagnosing any brain pathology (stroke, hydrocephalic syndrome, etc.). Functional MRI is a type of study that identifies functionally significant areas of the brain. It must be carried out before the operation so that it takes place with minimal risk.

A computer study is necessarily supplemented by a biopsy (taking samples to study a tumor). Based on histological features, brain tumors are divided into four grades. The first is the most benign, the last is malignant, the rest occupy an intermediate position.