A case of vertebral artery dissection that required differentiation from migraine

Abstract

We report a patient with left-occipital pain diagnosed as left vertebral artery dissection. A 38-year-old woman was suffering from migraine for 3 years and had left-occipital pain. During an evening meal, she had experienced this acute pain. Headache treatment drugs provided no relief, so she entered ER. She was revealed by computed tomography to have no subarachnoid hemorrhage, but magnetic resonance angiography revealed left vertebral artery dissection, which may be a much more common disease than we think. Therefore in a case of acute occipital pain, we should suspect it and obtain magnetic resonance angiography or computed tomography angiography.