A Little Background

I am truly blessed! I have a wonderful daughter and wonderful friends that continue to support me and care for me while I travel this seemingly never ending journey. I tire easily, and at times find the headaches unbearable, however my pain tolerance has improved greatly over the months. After seeing 5 neurologists I was finally diagnosed with a CSF leak in my brain. This is a rare condition that can be brought on by epidurals, spinal taps, head bumps, and oddly enough spontaneously. My leak has been caused by the latter of the four. The spinal fluid that is supposed to be inside the lobes of my brain are leaking out of the dura and into the space surrounding my brain. This is putting pressure on my brain, pushing it towards my skull and downwards into my neck, and causes great pain in the entire head and neck area. This is not the same condition where a shunt is used because this is when there is too much fluid in the brain. I am not able to produce enough CSF to keep the pressure in my brain at the right level, and then on top of that there is fluid outside my brain putting pressure on it. Somehow, they need to plug the hole. I was initially told that a Blood patch would do the trick. This procedure was completed on Friday, and unfortunately it did not work. It was a painful procedure that has left me in more pain and unfortunately did not plug the hole. I am now waiting for more testing and then a much more invasive procedure.
There is not much literature out there on Low CSF Headaches and the procedures that are out there, so I thought that this was an opportunity to journal, allow some insight to others that may be suffering from the same ailment, and a way to pass time while stuck in bed. Thank goodness I purchased a laptop last year. I love it...at the time of the purchase I thought it would be for my classroom, little did I know that God was preparing me for a year in bed. Now that you have a little information about my condition, I think that I will move on for a few posts and come back as new news is available. If anyone has questions ( all of my non readers:) ) please post them and I would be happy to answer them.
Laurie