Hello - I just found this site and it's very interesting. Please excuse this long message but I am hoping for some advice and figure I should give all the history first. Last fall I was diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst in the postererior of the cranial fossa measuring 46 mm X 39 mm. I've had bad balance since my teens and have never had any type of muscle memory - hopeless at all sports, after five years of dance classes could never remember a dance routine and could never do turns (I'd fall down), and despite 10 years of horseback riding would fall off so often I had my orthopedic surgeon's number memorized at 14.
In high school I started having really bad headaches starting from behind my ears - right where my glasses touched the skin back there . They thought at the time it was due to swelling of my lymph nodes and the glasses rubbing against them so they removed the nodes behind my ears. I never noticed any real difference but the headaches became fairly rare once I hit my 20's- I'm 57 now. I can remember a period about 20 years ago when I would suddenly get intense vertigo - the room would spin terribly - and the only solution was to knock myself out on Valium and sleep for a few hours until it went away. This went away on its own after about 4 months.
Last fall I discovered I had osteoarthritis in my cervical vertabrae and they saw the bottom of the cyst in my MRI. Then I had a brain MRI and they saw the size - 46 X 39 mm - and noted that it had split a portion of my cerebellum away from the rest of my brain and shoved it down my spinal cord.
As a sympton of the arthritis, I was told that the osteopytes were squeezing nerves and this was the cause of the severe pain I was having in my neck and shoulders. I had also lost some feeling in my right arm and hand as well as coordination - I could barely write. With some physical therapy and lots of stretching I've got all the feeling back and most of the coordination but the pain remains. I take about 45 - 60 mg of oxycodone daily for the pain.
Lately, I have been having the headaches again at the base of my skull and going behind my eyes - pressure type headaches that despite all those painkillers can send me to bed for 1 - 3 days. I had a CAT Scan and I have some fluid in my sinuses but nothing significant.
Now comes my question and request for advice. Could these headaches be caused by the cyst? Could it have started growing again? After all these years? And could the shoulder and back pain also be connected to the cyst? The neurologist and neurosurgeons I've seen have told me the cyst is benign and should be left as it is. I'm fine with that but if it's connected to these other symptoms I'd really like to do something about it. Any thoughts?
hamp
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Hello - I just found this site and it's very interesting. Please excuse this long message but I am hoping for some advice and figure I should give all the history first. Last fall I was diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst in the postererior of the cranial fossa measuring 46 mm X 39 mm. I've had bad balance since my teens and have never had any type of muscle memory - hopeless at all sports, after five years of dance classes could never remember a dance routine and could never do turns (I'd fall down), and despite 10 years of horseback riding would fall off so often I had my orthopedic surgeon's number memorized at 14.
In high school I started having really bad headaches starting from behind my ears - right where my glasses touched the skin back there . They thought at the time it was due to swelling of my lymph nodes and the glasses rubbing against them so they removed the nodes behind my ears. I never noticed any real difference but the headaches became fairly rare once I hit my 20's- I'm 57 now. I can remember a period about 20 years ago when I would suddenly get intense vertigo - the room would spin terribly - and the only solution was to knock myself out on Valium and sleep for a few hours until it went away. This went away on its own after about 4 months.
Last fall I discovered I had osteoarthritis in my cervical vertabrae and they saw the bottom of the cyst in my MRI. Then I had a brain MRI and they saw the size - 46 X 39 mm - and noted that it had split a portion of my cerebellum away from the rest of my brain and shoved it down my spinal cord.
As a sympton of the arthritis, I was told that the osteopytes were squeezing nerves and this was the cause of the severe pain I was having in my neck and shoulders. I had also lost some feeling in my right arm and hand as well as coordination - I could barely write. With some physical therapy and lots of stretching I've got all the feeling back and most of the coordination but the pain remains. I take about 45 - 60 mg of oxycodone daily for the pain.
Lately, I have been having the headaches again at the base of my skull and going behind my eyes - pressure type headaches that despite all those painkillers can send me to bed for 1 - 3 days. I had a CAT Scan and I have some fluid in my sinuses but nothing significant.
Now comes my question and request for advice. Could these headaches be caused by the cyst? Could it have started growing again? After all these years? And could the shoulder and back pain also be connected to the cyst? The neurologist and neurosurgeons I've seen have told me the cyst is benign and should be left as it is. I'm fine with that but if it's connected to these other symptoms I'd really like to do something about it. Any thoughts?
July 25, 2010 - 3:45amhamp
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