If you have preeclampsia while pregnant, your risk of getting an aneurysm is up because high blood pressure weakens the walls of your arteries and causes endothelial dysfunction. If you have severe headaches, changes in your eyesight, abrupt swelling in your face, or pain in your upper abdomen, you need to see a doctor right away.
Women over 35, women who are having their first child, and women with long-term health problems are at higher risk. Regular blood pressure checks and sophisticated imaging can help find problems early. Knowing when to call 911 instead of your doctor could save your life.
The Link Between Preeclampsia and Aneurysms
When you get preeclampsia while pregnant, it not only raises your blood pressure; it also changes how your blood vessels work at the cellular level. This high blood pressure condition causes endothelial dysfunction, which means that the inside of your arteries gets inflamed and damaged.
The persistent pressure from increased blood flow weakens the walls of blood vessels, making them more likely to bulge and break.
Your body tries to control preeclampsia, which causes a chain reaction of alterations in the blood vessels. Increased pressure and weakened vessel walls greatly raise the risk of aneurysms in your whole cardiovascular system.
Preeclampsia triggers an inflammatory response that damages the endothelium, the protective barrier of your blood vessels. This damage makes it harder for blood vessels to regulate blood flow and maintain their structure during the already stressful changes of pregnancy.
Symptoms That Need to Be Seen by a Doctor Right Away
Even though preeclampsia symptoms can develop gradually, you must treat certain warning signs immediately to prevent serious, potentially fatal health problems.
If you get severe headaches that don’t go away with medicine, blurry vision or seeing spots, or abrupt swelling of your face or hands, you should go to urgent care once. Pain in the upper abdomen, especially under the ribs, can mean that the liver is involved. If you gain more than two pounds a week, it means you’re holding onto water.
Check your blood pressure often, as values over 140/90 mmHg need to be looked at right away. These early indicators of preeclampsia can get worse very rapidly, putting both the mother’s blood vessels and the baby’s health at risk.
Don’t ignore symptoms that seem minor during pregnancy. Quick blood pressure management and a doctor’s visit can stop them from getting worse and leading to eclampsia or stroke, which will preserve your heart health in the long run.
Preeclampsia Factors That Make Aneurysms More Likely
Since preeclampsia affects 5–8% of pregnancies, healthcare providers must identify which women face the highest risk for aneurysms to focus prevention efforts effectively.
If you are over 35, pregnant with more than one baby, or having your first baby, your risk assessment goes up a lot. If you already have high blood pressure, diabetes, or an immunological problem, your risk of having an aneurysm goes up even more when you have preeclampsia.
Having a family history of heart disease or having had preeclamptic pregnancies in the past further raises the risk. Women with kidney illness are at even higher risk. They need to have their hearts monitored closely during their pregnancies.
If you’ve had assisted reproductive technology or severe preeclampsia before 34 weeks, you’ll require extra safety measures for mothers. Your healthcare team should check your blood pressure often, use specialized imaging, and make sure that obstetricians and vascular specialists work together.
How Doctors Screen for Aneurysm Development
After finding out what your risk factors are, your medical team will use a thorough screening process to look for early symptoms of aneurysm growth.
Regularly checking your blood pressure is important because high blood pressure caused by preeclampsia puts a lot of stress on your blood vessels, which might make them weaker. Your prenatal screening program will involve a lot of ultrasounds to check for any problems with blood flow and blood vessels.
Doppler investigations and other advanced imaging techniques can assist check the blood flow in the brain. If symptoms get worse, doctors may arrange specialized MRI or CT angiography.
Your healthcare team will keep an eye on your protein levels in your urine, your headache patterns, and any changes in your vision that could mean higher pressure within your brain. This extensive monitoring method makes sure that the best outcomes for both the mother and the fetus by finding possible problems early, when treatments work best.
Emergency Action Plan: When to Call Your Doctor and When to Call 911
If you’re dealing with preeclampsia while pregnant, knowing the difference between normal worries and medical crises could save your life.
If you have serious symptoms such as sudden severe headaches, changes in vision, chest discomfort, or trouble breathing, your emergency action plan should put calling 911 right away at the top of the list.
These indicate that you have serious pregnancy complications that require immediate treatment to protect your vascular health.
If your blood pressure rises slowly, you have minor swelling, or you have headaches that won’t go away but are manageable, call your doctor. You need to monitor these signs of preeclampsia carefully, but they don’t pose an immediate life-threatening risk.
Keep a written list of warning signs handy, and don’t wait too long if symptoms get worse suddenly. Your healthcare team would rather check out false alarms than ignore important indicators of aneurysm growth or other serious problems that could put you and your baby in danger.
In the year 2020, I encountered one of the most significant challenges of my life when I was diagnosed with an ascending aortic aneurysm. This condition, considered one of the most severe and dangerous forms of cardiovascular disease, required immediate surgical intervention. The ascending aorta, which is the segment of the aorta that rises from the heart and delivers oxygen-rich blood to the body, had developed an abnormal bulge in its wall, known as an aneurysm. Left untreated, such an aneurysm could lead to life-threatening conditions such as aortic dissection or even aortic rupture.
In response to this urgent health crisis, I underwent emergency surgery, a procedure aimed to repair the dilated section of my aorta, thereby preventing a potential disaster. This type of surgery often involves a procedure known as an open chest aneurysm repair, where the weakened part of the aorta is replaced with a synthetic tube, a demanding operation that calls for extensive expertise and precision from the surgical team.
Surviving such a major health scare deeply impacted my life, leading me to channel my experience into something constructive and helpful for others going through the same situation. As a result, I took it upon myself to establish this website and a corresponding Facebook group. These platforms are designed to provide support, encouragement, and a sense of community for those grappling with the reality of an ascending aortic aneurysm.
I often refer to those of us who have had our aneurysms discovered and treated before a catastrophic event as “the lucky ones.” The unfortunate reality is that aortic aneurysms are often termed “silent killers” due to their propensity to remain asymptomatic until they rupture or dissect, at which point it’s often too late for intervention. Thus, we, who were diagnosed and treated timely, represent the fortunate minority, having had our aneurysms detected before the worst could happen.
Through this website and our Facebook group, I aim to raise awareness, provide critical information about the condition, share personal experiences, and, above all, offer a comforting hand to those who are facing this daunting journey. Together, we can turn our brushes with mortality into a beacon of hope for others.
Also, I make websites look pretty and rank them on search engines, raise a super amazing kid, and I have a beautiful wife.
