More pseudotumour stuff

I went up to Baltimore to see my doctor today. It's been nearly a year since I was diagnosed and I am still throwing up and hearing things and very weak and having bad headaches that make it very difficult to get anything done.

We decided if I make an effor to lose weight (which I am not convinced will work or will help) we will talk about me getting the shunt put in place.

She also gave me a handout that she thought she had given me before. It's interesting because it says to beware of taking over the counter medication for pain because while it can help a little it can rebound. That seems to be exactly what happens. I get to be in so much pain I take some tylenol or maybe an ibuprofen and it helps a little but then I end up hurting much worse.

But if I can go without taking anything then overall I do better.

Also I notice since I stopped taking valerian everything is worse. Headaches, nausea, vomiting, noises in my ears, inability to control my temper, just being tired of everything and feeling sorry for myself. I found this site today that said that valerian is very good for pseudotumor and it can actually help reduce the pressure so yeah for my body for telling me I should take it.

My doctor also asked me to cut back on my medicine. We had been trying 1500 mgs of Diamox per day instead of 1000 but it didn't do any good. We'll see what happens next.

I was doing a little research online about the shunt and found this frightful report. Several sentences stick out and shock and horrify including

An attempt to pull the catheter from the thecal sac was met with resistance.

And then this list of places where the shunt has migrated including some that are actually now out of the body:

There are also reports of distal migration of the peritoneal catheter of VP shunts,18 with intestinal perforation,19-22 vaginal perforation,23 uterine perforation,21 bladder perforation,21 gallbladder perforation,24 pneumothorax,24
intestinal obstruction or volvulus,22,25 and extrusion through the anus,21 umbilicus,26 scrotum,27 abdominal incision,28 midlumbar region,29 and into the chest.

Couldn't you just die? Kind of like this patient I guess:

In the first documentation of an LP shunt, Ferguson4 created a
subarachnoid-peritoneal fistula by placing a silver wire in a canal drilled through a lumbar vertebra. The patient died within 24 hours of completion of the procedure.