Lone Star Neurology

Lewy body dementia is a progressive brain disease caused by clumps of alpha-synuclein. This protein builds up inside nerve cells and disrupts thinking, movement, sleep, and alertness from hour to hour. In many patients, it first shows itself through vivid hallucinations, physically acting out dreams, or an odd back-and-forth between clear days and foggy ones, rather than thro...

A headache that hits suddenly and reaches full force in under a minute is called a thunderclap headache, and you should treat it as an emergency until a doctor proves otherwise. The cause everyone worries about is a ruptured brain aneurysm, which bleeds from a weak spot in an artery, although other conditions can produce the same pain and most headaches have nothing to do wit...

A mini stroke, or transient ischemic attack (TIA), is a brief interruption of blood flow to part of the brain that causes stroke-like symptoms, such as a drooping face, a weak arm, or garbled speech, and then clears up, usually within minutes. It doesn’t leave obvious damage, but it warns that a full stroke may be close. Treat it as an emergency and call 911, even if the symp...

An EEG test (electroencephalogram) records the brain’s electrical activity through small sensors placed on the scalp, and it’s one of the most common tools neurologists use to look into seizures, fainting spells, and unexplained confusion. It’s painless, involves no radiation, and the wires only listen; they don’t send any current into your head. A routine appointment usually...

If you sleep a full seven to nine hours and still fight to stay awake at your desk, in class, or behind the wheel, the problem may not be your habits. Narcolepsy and idiopathic hypersomnia are neurological sleep disorders in which the brain can’t hold a steady state of wakefulness, and both need a medical diagnosis, not another lecture about going to bed earlier. Untreated, t...