Re: Re: Re: Natural Medicine & pseudo-tumor

Posted by Melissa on 04/14/03 at 11:58 PM

I did not read your e-mail before I replied to the last one. I have been going through this for a while now. My PTC has been quite severe and uncontrollable. The way you can find out for sure is by having a spinal tap. When they do your tap they will messure your pressure and if it messures too high they will be able to determine from that if you have a PTC. I was diagnosed origianlly by a neurologist by a spinal tap, but from the many ophthamologist that I have had to see since then I have been told that they will suspect a patient of PTC if they see swelling of they optic nerves. Of course this cannot be proven until the patient undergoes a tap to check the pressure of the spinal fluid. I have had to have the Optical Nerve Fenestration of one eye because I was losing my vision in it due to the amount of pressure the spinal fluid was putting on it. If you are told you do have a PTC find you a very good neurologist that you are comfortable with. They will probably treat you with Diamox. If you are overweight at all, take my advice start losing weight TODAY. If you do have PTC I will pray that they can get yours under control as quickly as possible. I have had over 15 spinal taps, so let me give you some advice if you have to have one it should NOT hurt really bad. If it is hurting tell them to stop and give you some more lidocaine. Just a few little things I have learned along the way. I have had over 15 spinal taps so I have learned to say ok I can feel that a little give me so more lidocaine. If I can tell you one very important thing that is if you are at all overweight start losing it now. If you are not you are all ready way ahead of the game. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.