What are the symptoms of carotid artery blockage?
The symptoms depends on many factors like the degree of block, incomplete, partial, or complete. Then it will also depend on the alternate circulation channels inside the brain and their competency. As already answered by Dr. Pangolin, transient ischemic attacks (TIA) may bring the condition to be noticed. The carotid artery would feel thickened as the blockage is usually because atherosclerosis. Stroke may follow and disturbances in vision may also be manifested. However, certain small defects may arise in the brain because of the blockage (and thereby ischemia to small parts of the brain tissue) but may remain imperceptible due to negligible change or negligible symptoms. Memory deficits and other higher functions may also be altered in varying degrees due to ischemia, but are ignored being insignificant to start with.
