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Ther my mom was diagnosed with incidentally identified wide…

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Answer 1

Answered in 6 minutes by:

7/16/2013

Neurologist: Dr. Frank, Board Certified Physician replied 8 years ago

Dr. Frank, Board Certified Physician

Category: Neurology

Satisfied Customers: 9,000

Experience: Board certified general Adult Neurologist, with experience in experimental neuroimaging and neurodiagnostics.

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Welcome to Just Answer. I am an Adult Neurologist and was contacted to answer your question.
The growth over one year is certainly under the standard of 1.0 mm a year. It is of a dimension range that does not need emergent surgery, that starts around 7 or 8 mm size.
the pain in the occiput is cervical muscular spasm pain, not related to the aneurysm, or the primitive posterior cerebral artery, which is just a variant. The pain comes from the neck and ascends to the insertions of these muscles in the back of the skull. It is tension type headache pain or from arthritic changes in the cervical spine. Treatment with NSAID medication, massage, should help.
Please get back to me if you have further questions, please rate my service. Dr Frank T

Answer 2

Neurologist: Dr. Frank, Board Certified Physician replied 8 years ago

Advil is fine to take for this problem. If there is no family history of cerebral aneuysms, or subarachnoid hemmorhage leading to death, you need to watch this yearly. The rate of growth is approx, 1 mm per year max, so eventually you may need surgery as it gets up to 8 mm size. They do not all grow, there are many variables to determine if they will grow, and those variables are only available from autopsy, looking at the blood vessel, so you cannot say. From autopsy studies, more than 6% of us have them, and we all don't die from them. So it really just needs to be watched occasionally.

Answer 3

Neurologist: Dr. Frank, Board Certified Physician replied 8 years ago

Your aneurysm is at a standard location, off the anterior cerebral/ophthalmic bifurcation, and it can be approached either endovascularly by an internal catheter, but it would depend upon that wide neck if that was the best approach, or from a temporal craniotomy, which is more complicated. Yes, I would say this is a hard surgery, and the risks of surgery are substantial. It should not be done until the risk of hemmorhage mandates that need.

Answer 4

Neurologist: Dr. Frank, Board Certified Physician replied 8 years ago

this is unlikely to be GON based on the fact that it changes sides, but more likely to be cervicogenic headache from spasm. this is an effect of arthritis in the cervical spine, causing spasm in the neck muscles and resultant pain. If this is a chronic problem, you could try trigger point injection therapy into the cervical muscles, or epidural steroid injection therapy into the cervical area if she has degenerative disc disease of the cervical spine. there is even Botox injections into these muscles for chronic pain.
A Neurologist or a pain management doctor that does injection therapy could help her with these problems.

Ther my mom was diagnosed with incidentally identified wide…

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