I have been told and read that Brain AVMs can be caused from head trauma. Yet, I don't think I have read any stories on here that indicated anyone had one cause from trauma. Please tell me if you are the exception and that a doctor confirmed yours was caused from an accident. Thank you.
Lea
Hi Lea. I have seen one or two members whose AVMs were caused by head trauma but is rare.
There are a fair number of members here whose avms were caused by trauma, Lea. With dural avms in particular, the majority are trauma-induced. I also believe my son's forehead avm was trauma induced from a bump on the forehead he had as a toddler, but there is really no way to know.
I learned just this week from a member that avms can be "activated" not just by hormones like progesterone but also from hormones released by the body during injury. So, it's not the trauma itself, but the resulting hormones, that cause the avm to expand and progress.
I often wondered that myself. I had a concussion in 1981 and I lost two pints of blood out my left ear. When my avm was discovered in my left frontal lobe in 1991. I was told that I was born with it and my head injury had nothing to do with it. They didn't have MRI's back then and I often wondered if they are right. How would they actually know, if they didn't have anything to compare my test results too(?). It makes me wonder.
The first thought that came to me was being thrown from a horse several years before my diagnosis. The doctors disagreed.
My neurosurgeon insist that all AVM's are formed at birth but mine was not found until I was 50 years old and suffered severe headaches after a hysterectomy. I had been thrown from a horse 6 years earlier and landed on the right side of my face and head, I have a right parietal AVM with frontal lobe involvement. (Exactly the area that hit the ground first) I don't remember walking to the house from the paddock & my husband said I asked him about the horse 3 times but I don't remember, that is when I believe my AVM was formed or started forming. But I'm no neurosurgeon, lol
A week before the onset of Brett's headache, he was walking and looking over his shoulder. He turned his head and ran into a pole. A couple of days later, he was tripped and hit his head on the ground. Both incidents were at the side of his head where his AVM was. I still have a feeling it sort of activated a process.
I was asked the same thing a few years ago by a colleague who also suffered an AVM bleed later in life. She believed at the time that a head trauma had caused her AVM which was located in the back of her head. I have had a few head traumas - I was born via forceps, I walked head first into a pole in high school and I fell backwards down a flight of stairs a few years before my bleed but my AVM was right behind my birthdmark so I doubt the head bumps caused it but who knows.... my friend was convinced her head trauma had caused it.
Heya Lea! Before the AVM was discovered and removed in 06 I was very active (as were a few other people on here). I played soccer since the 9th grade through my mid thirties (a lot of head butting and I was rather rough). But my doctor in 2006 told me the same thing, that it was something I had since birth. Lol, dad always said that it was head trauma that made me gay and that the AVM surgery just might change things...lol. It didn't. In all seriousness though, tell your doctor about your concerns and suspicions and have him or her tell you why head trauma would be ruled out. Decide for yourself after that. Sometimes they just tell you what they know, then again sometimes they know more than they're letting on. Hang in there! :J
miHi Lea,
I have been a very active athlete my whole life; soccer, volleyball, track and even became a professional ice skater which I took 20 years off then started up again at age 36. I got totally into it and began competing again at 41. My AVM burst when I was doing yard work when I was 43 so I beleive it was a birth defect. I hope you can find a way to have your son's AVM removed. There are so many alternative treatments. When I got to the hospital the surgeon said I made it just in time. They took out several AVMs including one that was the size of a tangerine (the one that burst) but they had to close me up because it was taking so long. I had 3 left in my brain and they had to determine if I would be a candidate for a Gamma Knife to remove them. We waited about 3 months for the answer and it was such a relief to hear I could have that done and not another crainiotomy. I had just barely learned to walk again and didn't think I could go through all that again. I am doing good now, I am 7 years post surgery, I have a 4 year old, am skating and although I take anti-seizure meds and have a bit of depression, which is getting better, I live a very normal life; even skate 2-3 times a week.
I had 3 children graduate from Seminole High School btw.
This is probably the most interesting post I’ve read so far. I had a car accident where my car flipped in 2007. There were no traces of avm at the time but now 8 years later they detect my avm from a seizure. Both my neurologists think my accident had something to do with my avm but the more I read on here, I believe I was born from it but my accident only sped things up. I was also born via c-section so could have something to do with that, Idk. Or I could be wrong and say it was my accident but I don’t think so. I think avms are rare birth phenomenons…
I just saw this discussion. I never heard or read anywhere about a trauma causing an AVM or activating??? one. They bleed because of the volume and speed of blood flowing from arteries to veins without there being a capillary bed to slow it all down. The pressure becomes too much and causes a bleed. Sometimes they are found during an autopsy, sometimes during an MRI being done for a different problem. Sometimes they are never found and never act up. They are thought to form when in utero while the vascular system is developing. They are called anomalies because something causes capillaries to be messed up. It is also now being studied in genes and if there is a specific gene or genes related to them. They are very rare - I think there are 300,000 people in the US who have one, but of those only 2-3% bleed. That is not a lot of people.
Let me paste a quote from by doctor's website
"Researchers have not definitively concluded what the causes of AVMs are, but suspect that AVMs of the brain usually occur during fetal development and sometimes as a result of spine or brain trauma."
http://nspc.com/condition/arteriovenous-malformations-avm/
My doctor explained that the body knows how to re-engineer the vascular system when there is a cut or an injury. He explained that some think that the spinal AVM I experienced might be the result of a trauma that just didn't re-engineer properly. He compared it to a scab that fell off but didn't heal properly.
In the end, they don't actually know.