We saw two neurologists this week (one was a neurovascular specialist); apparently my husband doesn’t have a ‘true’ AVM but something similar called a cavernous something-or-other which is much less dangerous. Given its relatively small size and its position (which means that the only way to ‘neutralize’ it would be open-brain surgery), the advice we got was to leave it alone as it is unlikely to bleed and cause further damage. Both neurologists agreed that it is likely to be the cause of my husband’s symptoms.
I’m not sure why his primary care doctor told us it was an AVM; one of the neurologists gave us a copy of the report and it doesn’t have that term on it.
We may seek out another opinion but it seems that we’ll need to move on to find a cause of his symptoms. So it’s good that he doesn’t have something dangerous, but he still is symptomatic with a disease of unknown cause.
I’ll write back next week when we have further info.
Thanks for everyone’s help and support!
Kerry (LiveWire)