What would a patient be experiencing if an aneurysm is the cause of their discomfort?
There’s a spectrum of possibilities with respect to the clinical symptoms that they have. The most common presentation for someone who is having a hemorrhage from an aneurysm is [a] severe and sudden headache. Some people will say, “This is the worst headache of my life.” And when people hear that phrase—they’re taught this in medial school—they should be very worried that [the patient] just had an aneurysmal hemorrhage. What we’ve come to recognize over time is that’s only one presentation. The presentation that should alert the physician to the possibility of an aneurysmal hemorrhage is sudden and severe [headaches]. You can imagine that there are a lot of people out there who have headaches, have migraine disorders. The tip-off is when the headache is different than their typical headache. People can present with a range of different possibilities: They can lose consciousness. If the aneurysm is big enough, it can cause symptoms without actually bleeding. An aneurysm can cause press
