A headache that keeps recurring for weeks could be an early warning sign of a brain haemorrhage, not simple stress, neurosurgeon Dr Teddy Totimeh has warned.
Speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show, Dr Totimeh said bleeding in the brain occurs when a blood vessel ruptures, letting blood leak into brain tissue and disrupt normal function. “It’s almost as if you’ve poured water into a computer,” he said, describing how the brain, which he called an electrical organ, stops working properly once blood enters it.
He said hemorrhagic stroke accounts for a far larger share of strokes in Ghana than in many other countries, largely because of widespread hypertension, citing a figure of close to 60 percent locally against roughly a third elsewhere. Published Ghanaian research presents a somewhat lower but still elevated picture: hospital based studies have put hemorrhagic strokes at between about a fifth and three tenths of all stroke cases nationally, still notably higher than the closer to one in ten seen in many high income countries, with hypertension consistently identified as the leading driver.
Dr Totimeh described a pattern in which patients experience what he called the worst headache of their life before a major bleed, a warning sign known medically as a sentinel bleed that can occur hours or days ahead of a catastrophic haemorrhage. He said early detection of a sentinel bleed can allow neurosurgeons to intervene before the major bleed happens.
He advised that a headache which keeps recurring, or is severe enough to interrupt daily activities, especially if it persists beyond a month, should be investigated with a computed tomography (CT) scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) rather than dismissed as stress or migraine.
Dr Totimeh stressed that controlling high blood pressure remains the most effective way to reduce the risk of hemorrhagic stroke.
