What causes increased intracranial pressure?

One of the common symptoms of increased intracranial pressure is headache and vomiting, which is a disease that is very harmful to human health. After suffering from this disease, you should avoid lowering your head and seek timely treatment for cough, otherwise the symptoms will be aggravated. If the intracranial pressure increases for a long time, it can lead to craniocerebral injury and brainstem hemorrhage, which is a very dangerous disease.

Clinical manifestations of increased intracranial pressure

1. Headache is the earliest and most common symptom of increased intracranial pressure, often manifested as bloating or tearing pain, which is more severe in the morning or at night. The headache worsens when lowering the head, coughing or exerting force. It is not common in the forehead and temporal regions, but can also radiate from the occipital region to the eye sockets.

2. Vomiting Severe headaches are often accompanied by nausea and vomiting, the typical manifestation of which is projectile vomiting.

3. Papilledema This is the most important objective sign of increased intracranial pressure. Fundus examination shows that the optic disc is congested, the edges are blurred, the physiological depression disappears, the optic disc is bulging, and the fundus veins are dilated. Long-term chronic high intracranial pressure can cause secondary optic atrophy, decreased vision and even blindness.

Factors affecting increased intracranial pressure

1. Age: In infants and young children, the cranial sutures are not closed or are not completely closed, which can cause the cranial sutures to open and delay the increase in intracranial pressure. In the elderly, due to brain atrophy, the intracranial compensatory space increases, the disease course is long, and the increase in intracranial pressure appears later.

2. The speed of lesion expansion: If the contents of the cranial cavity increase rapidly, the symptoms of increased intracranial pressure will appear in a short period of time, such as craniocerebral injury, cerebrovascular accident and rapidly growing intracranial malignant tumors. If the lesion grows slowly, such as a slow-growing benign intracranial tumor, the symptoms of increased intracranial pressure may not appear for a long time.

3. Lesion site: Space-occupying lesions occurring in the midline or posterior cranial fossa can easily block the cerebrospinal fluid circulation pathway, causing acute obstructive hydrocephalus and severe increase in intracranial pressure. Lesions located near the great intracranial sinuses can cause intracranial venous reflux obstruction at an early stage, leading to increased intracranial pressure.

4. The degree of associated cerebral edema Some lesions, such as malignant tumors, intracranial metastases and intracranial infectious lesions, may be accompanied by obvious cerebral edema, and symptoms of increased intracranial pressure may appear in the early stages.