I have had this discussion a number of times with a number of doctors and organisations. The headache…is NOT always sudden, severe or the worst you have ever had! Both of my son’s ruptures started with a normal headache. The first one developed onto other Neurological symptoms which a doctor chose to ignore and told me to take him home and put him to bed because he did NOT have this sudden, severe headache. If I had listened and not followed my gut and taken him to hospital he would have died at the age of 9. The second, again, started with a normal headache which did worsen after an hour and then vomiting started. Neither of these ruptures presented with the specific symptoms for his specific AVM that we were told to expect by his medical team. My advice to EVERYONE with an AVM is to follow your gut. No matter how many or how few symptoms you have and no matter to what degree, if you feel something is not right then get checked out. You are not wasting anyone’s time and you may just save your life.