[Unusual triggering circumstance of benign acute cerebral angiopathy; link with exertion cephalalgia?]

Immediately following a scream of fear, a sixty-year old woman complained of severe bilateral headache which relapsed several times over the following month during exercise. There was no history of sympathomimetic drug intake. The work-up was normal save for minimal subarachnoid bleeding and the angiogram showed a disseminated "sausage-string" appearance over all cerebral arterial territories, without aneurysm. The unusual triggering event in this case and the subsequent recurrence of headache in relation to exercise lead us to discuss possible links between the clinical entity of "Isolated benign cerebral angiopathy" and exertional headache.