Carotid artery stenosis is a common disease in the elderly. What are the symptoms?

A patient asked in a private message. The patient is a 62-year-old male. During a physical examination this year, he found that the stenosis rate of his left carotid artery was over 70%. The doctor recommended surgery. The patient was confused. Carotid artery stenosis should have symptoms. Normally, he does not have obvious clinical symptoms such as headaches and dizziness, and he is in good health. What is going on?

There are blood supply arteries on both sides of the human neck. If one side of the blood vessels is narrowed, the other side of the blood vessels is in good condition, and the brain is well supplied with blood, the patient will not have obvious clinical symptoms. Generally speaking, symptoms will only appear when the patient's brain is not supplied with enough blood and the brain is ischemic and hypoxic.

There are three symptoms of carotid artery stenosis: 1. Transient ischemic attack: patients experience headache, dizziness, transient blackouts, aphasia, limb numbness and other symptoms. These symptoms are generally mild and will not cause substantial harm to the patient. Moreover, these symptoms last for a short time, no longer than 24 hours, usually a few minutes or even a few seconds. Because transient ischemic attacks last for a short time and the symptoms are mild, they are often easily ignored.

2. Cerebral infarction: Patients may have symptoms such as crooked mouth, hemiplegia, aphasia, and coma. The FAST principle can be used to determine whether a patient has cerebral infarction: F refers to the face, and observe whether the patient has symptoms of crooked mouth; A refers to the arm, and the patient is asked to raise both arms horizontally to observe whether there is weakness in one side of the limbs; S refers to language, and the patient is asked to say a simple sentence, such as "It's a great day today", and observe whether the patient has slurred speech; T refers to time. When the patient has the above three symptoms, it is recommended to call 120 emergency number immediately and send to the hospital in time. Rescuing patients with cerebral infarction during the golden time can reduce the disability rate and mortality rate of patients.

3. Other ischemic symptoms: blindness, positional vertigo, blurred thinking, etc.

The elderly are a high-risk group for carotid artery stenosis. Regardless of whether they have symptoms or not, it is recommended that this group of people have a color ultrasound of the neck during the physical examination to rule out neck diseases and reduce the risk of stroke.