Hello, I’m new here! I’m 29 years old, female, from Italy. Please excuse my bad English.
Here’s my story.
Last year, in May, I was taking a walk in the park when suddendly I had the strongest headache I’d ever experienced in my life. It was so sudden and on the top of my head. The last thing I remember is that I was talking to a friend. Next thing I know, I was in the hospital four days later about to do an MRI.
Thankfully I was with a friend, who thought something was off when I started crying because of the pain and started asking over and over where we were going and why. I don’t remember any of this, he told me everything some days later. He took me to the er, they did a TC scan and bam! Brain hemorrhage. So I was rushed to the neurosurgery ward of a bigger hospital.
The bleeding was stopped with medication, so they didn’t perform a surgery. After a all the exams, and sleeping and not eating for several days, the doctors told me that basically my only option was radiosurgery, due to the location (corpus callosum) and the size of my AVM. I was discharged after two weeks. I had terrible pain in my lower back from the blood flowing down, but other than that I was feeling pretty much normal, except from some fatigue and feeling down all the time.
They suggested another hospital because they don’t do radiosurgery in the first hospital, so I went there, met the surgeon twice, and then I was put on the waiting list. At the end of January they finally admitted me to the hospital and performed the radiosurgery with Gamma Knife. Two weeks later I was already back to work.
Now I’m just worried about possible side effects - should I open another thread?
Anyway, nice to meet you everybody!
Edit - So I decided to add my question here: after the procedure, I was told that I reacted well and that they used a small dose of radiation. I felt nauseous for several days, but it could also have been that I had an infection on the wounds on my head. Then, a few days ago (almost one month after GK) I started feeling sharp pain in my head. It’s like I have pins, the pain comes and goes, and it changes location from time to time. I wonder if this is because only now my head is feeling less numb from the anesthesia, or if it could be a side effect - biut wouldn’t one month be too early? The pain doesn’t feel very deep in the brain but it’s not always near the point where they fixed the needles. The doctor told me to call him if I have a strong headache, and this is getting worse, but can never tell how actually serious the pain is, because compared to the headache I had when my AVM bled, every headache is nothing!
Also, for those of you who have experienced side effects - what did you do about it? Did you take cortisone? Did you see the neurosurgeon earlier than scheduled? Were you hospitalized?
Thank you!
