Cerebral infarction does not usually cause headaches. Today I’d like to introduce one of the frequently asked questions from patients at my clinic about a topic that is often misunderstood.
Patients often come to my clinic because they have had a headache since the morning, and they ask if it could have been caused by cerebral infarction.
To begin with, cerebral infarction, which is one type of what is commonly known as "a stroke," is the death of brain cells which have been deprived of oxygen.
Because cerebral infarction only involves the death of cells, neither the cells nor the brain increases in size, and there is thus no increase in pressure on the brain.
In most cases, headaches are caused by stretching of the dura mater, which is one of the protective membranes surrounding the brain.
This stretching results from an increase in pressure under the membrane.
Bleeding inside of the head due to a ruptured blood vessel can rapidly increase pressure on the brain and the meninges because blood normally does not enter the fluid surrounding the brain.
In that case, people have extremely painful headaches.
However, as I told you before, cerebral infarction is just the death of brain cells and does not cause a rapid increase in pressure on the brain.
Therefore, cerebral infarction itself does not usually cause headaches.
Once you understand that, you should be less anxious about your headache.
However, there is an exception.
In some cases, cerebral infarction results when damage to a blood vessel in the brain causes a tear in the blood vessel’s wall.
This kind of cerebral infarction can cause headaches.
However, most kinds of cerebral infarction do not usually cause headaches.
Now, you might be wondering what kinds of headaches you should be worried about, and I’ll speak about that topic next time.
Thank you for watching.
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