Hello my name is Shelley, I am 31 years old and was diagnosed in April of 2011. I have been happily married to my high school sweetheart for 11 years. We have been unable to have children thus far (due to PCOS). I have suffered my entire life with headaches and migraines, thought to be from stress and high blood pressure. I have been on medication daily for the past 10 years to help keep that under control. I got a really bad case of the Flu in November 2010 and never felt better after that. I went to my doctor several times thru December, January, and February complaining of headaches, neck pain, eye pressure, and an extreme feeling of tiredness all the time. At first my Doctor said I was still trying to recover from the flu, then she said maybe my allergy medicine had stopped working as well and she changed those, then she said it is probably tension I bet you are just stressed at your job and put me on muscel relaxers. Nothing worked and I was getting frustrated and just wanted to sleep and keep my head still all the time. My husband then suggested getting my eyes checked to see if it was my vision bothering me?...So I did and my eye doctor said “ Have you been having heads and can you tell me about them?”. So I told him what was going on, and I said “you are probably going to think I am crazy for saying this but I also here an Ocean sound in my ears and get dizzy spells like I am going to pass out”. He told me I was not crazy and that my Occipital never was very swollen and that from the pictures of the back of my eyes he could tell there was a lot of fluid pressure in my head. The next thing I know two days later I was at the neurologist office and getting a ton of testing, blood work, CT scans and MRI’s, then finally a lumbar puncher. My pressure level was 35 and I was then told I have Pseudotumor Cerebri / Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. My doctor didn’t seem to offer a ton of information on it to me, so a lot I find out on the internet, I did go and see my OBGyn just recently and she told me the most about it and printed a bunch of medical journal info for me. Now as I look back and see the symptoms so much makes senses to me, for so long I just thought that I was crazy or I would think/ blame everything on my weight. I just feel almost thankful that I now know what it is and that I can put a plan in place. I am on Acetazolamide 500 mg 2 X a day, Toprol 150 Mg 1X a day and I am working hard on weight loss I am down 50 pounds in three months. I still have my bad and sometimes very days and get some pretty ugly side effects from the meds, but my goal is that with weight loss and medicine management this year I can get off the Acetazolamide and start back to work on having a baby. I am so happy to find a place here, to hear other stories and help each other by sharing what we have learned. My family and friends are very supportive to me, but they just really don’t understand, I think they just think it is another headache. I am feeling positive today, and thankful to have found this site!
:hello: Shelley