Brain tumors often mimic many other neurological disorders, producing brain tumor symptoms. Neck pain, headaches, or even strokes can result from a tumor of the brain. With brain tumor symptoms, neck pain, headaches, seizures, gastrointestinal symptoms and other significant symptoms occur when the tumor damages the central nervous system, nerves in the brain or the tumor places pressure upon the brain. Early diagnosis is difficult with some slow growing brain tumors because the symptoms are often very subtle and appear gradually.
With brain tumor symptoms neck pain can appear at times but headaches are usually the most frequent sign of a brain tumor. Most people have headaches at one time or another but that does not mean they have a brain tumor. Headaches resulting from brain tumors produce various symptoms depending upon the brain tumors location. Although usually associated with other symptoms such as confusion or vomiting, some brain tumor headaches occur while sleeping. With brain tumor symptoms, neck pain, numbness, weakness, or double vision some times occur. Other types of headache symptoms sometimes caused by brain tumors include a headache that worsens with exercise or coughing and a headache that is more severe upon awakening but usually disappears after two or three hours.
There are several other brain tumor symptoms. Neck pain and headaches are common but so are gastrointestinal symptoms. Individuals with brain stem cell tumors and other types of tumors often experience vomiting and nausea. Some patients with brain tumors suffer from reasoning and speech problems, impaired concentration, memory loss, or increased sleeping time. Depending upon the brain tumors location, between fifteen and ninety-five percent of all patients suffer from seizures. A brain tumor that affects a certain brain area often causes a partial seizure. They may experience tingling, confusion, odd emotional or mental events or jerking movements but remain conscious during the partial seizure. Generalized seizures, which sometimes cause a person to lose consciousness, are not very common. Other significant brain tumor symptoms, neck pain being one, also include unsteadiness, difficulty with speech, gradual sensation or movement loss affecting a leg or arm, hearing loss sometimes accompanied by dizziness, or peripheral vision loss or double vision in both or one eye.
There are specific brain tumors that have specific symptom syndromes that often help doctors identify a specific tumor. An example of this is Brain Stem Gliomas. Symptoms that appear suddenly include problems swallowing, a clumsy walk, impaired vision or hearing, vomiting upon waking, slurred or nasal speech, and muscle weakness that affects only one side of the patients face.