People experiencing sleep disorders with persistent headaches should be aware of the threat of brain tumors, a neurosurgeon said.
Kuang Tien General Hospital physician Hsu Lei-to (徐雷鐸) said a female manager at a trading company in Taichung, surnamed Hsu (許), who had trouble sleeping, recently came to him for help.
The patient, 48, said her biological clock changed significantly last year because of a persistent headache that caused her to wake up around midnight. As a result, she slept for only about two hours every day, she said.
Her sleeping problems prompted her to contact overseas clients in the early hours of the morning, which greatly boosted the number of orders she received and she was promoted to manager.
At first, she thought her lack of sleep was due to stress and her reaching menopause, and tried to alleviate her conditions by working extra hours at midnight, as her headache seemed to go away once she awoke.
However, her problems deteriorated in the second half of last year, causing her to suffer from headaches even when awake.
After trying painkillers to no avail, she sought medical help.
Hsu Lei-to gave her a computer tomography scan and discovered that she had developed a brain tumor measuring 5cm in diameter on the right of her temporal lobe, accompanied by cerebrospinal fluid buildup around it.
After removing the tumor, Hsu Lei-to confirmed the tumor to be glioblastoma multiforme — the most common and aggressive form of malignant brain tumor.
He said that the patient had woken up at midnight due to the carbon dioxide concentration in the blood, which increases during sleep.
The phenomenon leads to dilated blood vessels, which cause the tumor to put pressure on the brain, thereby inducing headaches, he said.
This syndrome is deceivingly dangerous because headaches only occur during sleep or when a person wakes up, which often delays the time patients seek medical help, he added.
Hsu Lei-to said his patient had developed a headache so serious that she could not even sit upright. Her symptoms disappeared immediately after the surgery, he said.
He said that after quitting her job to receive the necessary therapies, the woman has now completed the course of treatment and has been able to keep her illness under control by taking anticancer drugs.
He told the woman to get closer to nature more often and retain a relaxed state of mind as part of her recovery.
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