Brain Tumor Early Symptoms

A person is said to have brain tumor when an abnormal growth of cells are found in the brain. There are mainly two types of brain tumors. Tumors that begin to grow in the brain are said to be primary brain tumors. However, sometimes the tumor has spread from a cancerous part of the body to the brain. This is called the secondary or the metastatic brain tumor. Primary brain tumors can either be benign, i.e. non-cancerous or cancerous, while secondary brain tumors are always malignant.

Causes of Brain Tumor
Experts have not yet found out the main factor that causes brain tumor. However, it has been observed that men have a high chance of acquiring this disease. Another factor that increases the risk of brain tumor is age, but this cannot be fully relied upon. For instance, although brain tumor is largely detected in people above 70 years of age, young children are also reported to have this disease. Along with age and gender, heredity is also another factor that gives rise to brain tumor. There are also certain environmental factors like exposure to harmful chemicals like vinyl chloride, formaldehyde and acrylonitrlie, that can lead to a person having this serious disease.

Brain Tumor Early Symptoms
As brain tumor can be a life-threatening disease, it is extremely important that it is diagnosed as early as possible. However, the problem with the early symptoms of brain tumor is that they are very common and can be found with other diseases too. Still, it is important that every person is aware of the brain tumor symptoms at an early stage. The signs that a person would experience when having brain tumor would depend upon the size and the location of the tumor. When the tumor in the brain expands, it exerts lot of pressure on the skull, which leads to some of these symptoms.

• Headache is said to be one of the most common symptom of brain tumor. Most people who are diagnosed with this disease have said that they have experienced excruciation and chronic pain in their head. However, as headaches commonly occur in daily life, many times they are diagnosed as a symptom of migraine or sinusitis. If one is having headaches very regularly, more when one is lying or bending down, the cause can be brain tumor. Along with headache, it is also usual for a person to have nausea and vomiting.
• Another common early symptom of brain tumor is seizure, which is usually caused due to high fever, trauma, epilepsy, stroke, etc. A person having a tumor in the brain may have seizures, where he may lose consciousness or experience muscle twitching, mild or severe limb shaking.
• Vision and hearing problems are also said to be the symptoms of brain tumor. The person may have a blurred vision due to the pressure of the skull on the eyes. It has been observed that most brain tumor cases are diagnosed by eye specialists, because they may be able to see the effects of the intracranial pressure on the eyes during check up.
• Certain behavioral and cognitive changes may be observed in people affected by brain tumor. The family members and friends of the person may observe that the person is not able to concentrate on his work, has speech problems, memory loss, or is asleep all the time, causing problems at work as well as at home. There may also be changes in behavior like very less patience or tolerance towards others, and also less inhibition to do things that they never have done earlier.
• Another sign of early brain tumor would include the feeling of weakness in the legs, arms and face muscles. One may also experience problems in balancing and coordinating certain moments because of this, sometimes even leading to paralysis.

Diagnosis and Treatment
A person experiencing any of these problems needs to go to the doctor for a check-up. Many times, these symptoms are mis-diagnosed because they are common for other diseases too. However, if one has a doubt that they are brain tumor early symptoms, one should talk about it clearly to the physician. The only way of diagnosing whether a person has brain tumor is by doing an MRI or CT Scan. Once it is determined that a person has brain tumor, the method of treatment would depend upon the location of the tumor and also on the severity of the patient's condition. However, the main method of treatment for brain tumor is brain surgery.

Many times people do not experience any signs of brain tumor or sometimes they just ignore them as something of less importance. However, if one ever experiences any of these brain tumor early symptoms, it is extremely crucial to consult a health practitioner to prevent the condition from becoming worse.