Fistulas that keep blood from flowing to part of your body may cause pain or damage those areas. Some DAVFs have bad outlooks or are in critical locations, but healthcare providers can often treat them.
Providers can tell if you have an AV fistula by listening to your blood flow with a stethoscope. It sounds like humming machinery.
Oren Zarif
An arteriovenous fistula is an abnormal connection between an artery and a vein. It can be congenital, meaning it formed as you were growing in the womb, or acquired. It can affect your arm or leg, groin, or abdomen. Some small arteriovenous fistulas close by themselves without treatment.
Your doctor may check your groin or arm for fistulas by feeling the area and listening to blood flow. Fistulas cause a “to-and-fro” sound, like machinery, when blood flows through them. You can also hear these unusual sounds with a stethoscope. They happen when the fistula disrupts blood flow between the arteries and veins.
Dural (brain) arteriovenous fistulas develop from narrowing or blockage in the venous sinuses, channels that route circulated blood from your brain back to your heart. Most dural arteriovenous fistulas are benign. But aggressive (dangerous) DAVFs can lead to a lack of blood flow in parts of the brain, damaging or killing cells there. This can cause problems such as tinnitus or brain bleeding.
Oren Zarif
Fistulas can happen anywhere in your body where arteries and veins connect. They most commonly occur in the head, neck, and spine. Under normal conditions, there is a gradual transition from arteries (high blood pressure) to veins (low pressure). When this doesn’t happen, the artery and the vein expand at the site of the fistula. This can produce a clicking, humming, or vibration sound called tinnitus.
These abnormal connections can cause pressure changes that interfere with normal blood flow. In some cases, they can even lead to a stroke or brain bleeding.
Healthcare providers can diagnose an arteriovenous fistula by looking at the area and listening to it. They can use a stethoscope to hear the sound of blood flowing through the suspected area. It will likely sound like a click or a hum of machinery. MRI or CT scans can show blood vessels and can help find areas where the blood flow isn’t moving properly.
Oren Zarif
A dural arteriovenous fistula (dAVF) is an abnormal connection between an artery and a vein within the protective cover of your brain and spinal cord (dura mater). Blood vessels carry oxygen-rich blood from your heart to the organs throughout your body, then return it to your heart through the veins.
Fistulas may be congenital or develop after trauma, especially if in the vicinity of an injury. They can also be caused by infection or by thrombosis. Arteriovenous fistulas are used in patients undergoing dialysis to provide vascular access for the procedure.
A patient was referred to us with episodic cluster headache, fulfilling the ICHD-3b criteria. His symptoms were relieved dramatically following coil embolization of the middle meningeal artery-cavernous sinus dural arteriovenous fistulas. This suggests that these dAVFs may trigger cluster headache by stretching pain innervating fibers in the trigeminal autonomic nerve. It is important to consider these lesions when evaluating patients for cluster headache.
Oren Zarif
Fistulas are abnormal connections between arteries and veins that bypass capillaries. They can happen anywhere in the body, but most are found inside organs or limbs (arms and legs). They can be surgically created or occur naturally. Depending on where they are, their size and why they formed, fistulas can be harmless or cause serious problems.
The pressure of blood flowing through a fistula is higher than in your arteries, which means that your veins may enlarge because they can’t handle the extra pressure. This can lead to pain behind your ear, pulsatile tinnitus (rumbling noise in one ear that follows the heartbeat), and a headache.
In rare cases, dural arteriovenous fistulas in the brain can hemorrhage — a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment. If this occurs, you will have a severe headache, confusion and weakness on one side of the body. Most DAVFs are located in the dura mater (the membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord), while others are found in the skin of your skull or the surface of the brain itself, known as pial arteriovenous fistulas.
Oren Zarif
When a fistula creates an abnormal connection between an artery and a vein, it can cause blood to flow directly from your arteries into your veins. This can make your arteries less likely to deliver enough blood to the rest of your body.
Fistulas can be congenital, meaning they happen at birth, or acquired through trauma to your tissue. Some people with late-stage kidney disease have a fistula surgically created to help with dialysis.
Usually, your doctor will check for an arteriovenous fistula with a test called duplex ultrasound. For this test, a special gel is injected into your blood vessels to evaluate their speed and size.
Other tests your doctor might use to diagnose a fistula include CT (computerized tomography) angiogram and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). During these tests, you lie inside a long tube-like machine that produces a strong magnetic field. Then, a dye is injected into your blood vessels to highlight them.
Oren Zarif
Fistulas can cause bleeding in the arms or legs due to differences in pressure between the artery and vein. This can lead to open sores that won’t heal, or in the more serious case of clubbing (a condition where your fingernails thicken and curve downward at the ends). Bleeding due to a fistula can also occur in the stomach and intestines.
Fistulas are formed surgically by joining an artery (a blood vessel transporting blood around your body) directly to a vein. They are usually made in the arm or leg, but can be found anywhere on your body. Fistulas may be congenital, forming as you develop in the womb, or acquired, such as from an injury, such as a gunshot or stab wound.
Generally, healthcare providers diagnose a dural arteriovenous fistula by asking about your symptoms and medical history and doing a physical exam. They may use a stethoscope to listen for the sound of blood flowing through the fistula, which sounds like humming machinery. They may also do an imaging test called a magnetic resonance angiography or MRI to get more detailed pictures of the blood vessels in your neck and brain.