(NEXSTAR) – Kim Kardashian, the entrepreneurial reality TV star and criminal justice reform advocate, revealed that she was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
In teaser clips that aired during the season premiere of “The Kardashians” on Wednesday, the SKIMS founder is seen undergoing an MRI and telling her family, “there was a little aneurysm,” People and The Today Show reported.
Kardashian, 45, is also shown explaining that aneurysms can be caused by stress, but it’s a bit more complicated.
A brain aneurysm occurs when a blood vessel in your brain bulges or balloons, the Mayo Clinic explains. The blood constantly flowing through your vessels can put pressure on a weak area in or around your brain, or an artery, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The bulge or balloon can then grow in the weakened area.
In addition to “wear and tear” on your arteries, the Brain Aneurysm Foundation says numerous factors may contribute to an aneurysm. Smoking cigarettes and high blood pressure are among the most significant. Other factors include drug use, a family history of brain aneurysms, excessive alcohol use, an infection, and severe head trauma.
Some conditions — Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, polycystic kidney disease, brain arteriovenous malformation, Marfan syndrome, and fibromuscular dysplasia, to name a few — can weaken your arteries and raise your chances of an aneurysm.
Symptoms of a brain aneurysm (sometimes known as a cerebral aneurysm or an intracranial aneurysm) can vary based on whether it has ruptured. An unruptured aneurysm may cause headaches, vision changes, dilated pupils, numbness or tingling in your head or face, pain above and behind your eyes, reduced eye movement, double vision, and seizures.
In the U.S., experts say as many as 6% of people have a brain aneurysm that is not bleeding. However, about 30,000 people a year experience a ruptured aneurysm.
Johns Hopkins Medicine says you may not know you have a brain aneurysm until it leaks or ruptures. A leak or rupture can cause bleeding within your brain, posing a life-threatening situation that requires emergency medical treatment, the Cleveland Clinic explains.
If that rupture happens between your brain and the tissue covering your brain, it’s known as a subarachnoid hemorrhage. If there is bleeding between your brain and your skull, that is a hemorrhagic stroke.
Signs that an aneurysm has ruptured include “a sudden, severe headache … often described by people as the worst headache they’ve experienced,” according to the Mayo Clinic. The Cleveland Clinic says a leak, which occurs when only a small amount of blood is released from the aneurysm, may cause warning headaches “days or weeks before a significant rupture.”
Other symptoms include a stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, blurred or double vision, drooping eyelids, dilated pupils, pain above or behind your eye, sensitivity to light, seizure, confusion, weakness, numbness, and loss of consciousness.
However, Johns Hopkins Medicine says most aneurysms are small, giving them a lower risk of rupturing, and produce no symptoms.
Treatment can vary depending on how large the aneurysm is, where it is in your brain, and if it has ruptured. Surgery can be used on ruptured aneurysms and may be useful if you have an unruptured aneurysm. Ultimately, health experts say treatment will depend on your unique situation.
It wasn’t revealed what, if any, treatment Kardashian received in the show’s teaser preview.
Last year, Dr. Dre revealed that he suffered three strokes after being hospitalized with a brain aneurysm in early 2021.
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