Seventeen years later, she had to undergo brain surgery to remove three aneurysms caused by smoking. I thought lung cancer was the only thing that could happen, and I thought that happened only to much older people. Cigarette smoking can cause brain aneurysms, particularly in young women. Dr. Thomas Kopitnik, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas professor of neurological surgery, said patients like Bradshaw don't know of the danger.
Nicotine attacks the cerebral blood vessels.
According to Kopitnik, after seeing many young women patients with smoking-related aneurysms, he feels strongly about early aneurysm screenings for women at risk. Bradshaw also wants other young women to know the immediate effects of a cigarette. Her family doctor, Dr. Joe King of Nashville, is the one who realized she had something more than a headache. The pain came on suddenly. It felt like a sledgehammer hit me, and my head started to get hot.