Actor Emilia Clarke, who appeared on Game of Thrones, has revealed she is struggling with a brain aneurysm that caused the loss of “quite a bit” of the organ.
Here are five points about the life-threatening illness:
According to the Johns Hopkins Medicine Center, it is a ballooning that results from an abnormal focal widening of an artery in the brain that results from a weakening of the inner muscle layer in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain.
The disease is also called brain aneurysm or intracranial aneurysm. The “blister-like” dilation can thin and rupture without warning.
It’s life-threatening because if the brain aneurysm expands and the blood vessel wall becomes too thin, it will rupture and bleed into the space around the brain, according to the Johns Hopkins Medicine Center. This event is called a subarachnoid hemorrhage and can cause a hemorrhagic stroke.
Most brain aneurysms have no symptoms and are small in size (less than 10 millimeters). However, some occasional symptoms include headache (rare, if continuous), eye pain, vision changes, and decreased eye movement.
In May, news reports reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping is suffering from “cerebral aneurysm” and will be hospitalized in late 2021. Mrs. Clarke had suffered two brain aneurysms in the early years of filming the hit series Game of Thrones. While recovering from the first surgery at age 24, she couldn’t even remember her own name.