Hello to everyone out there from Texas. I'm Krystal. I'm 32 years old and can honestly say that I was diagnosed with IIH by accident. I have had "migraines" since I was 9 and my doctors have always told me that I was just going to have to deal with them. No amount of medication I tried would help. Nothing they did made any difference. Throughout the years, I was tested for everything from epilepsy to MS with no positive diagnosis. Each time, I found myself just praying for an answer, any answer. I was so tired of being in pain every single day with no sign of relief.
Fast forward a few years...I moved to a new town and found a new doctor. He kept seeing something strange in my eyes, but could not say for certain that I had IIH without an elevated spinal tap reading so after that initial reading, he dropped it. A year went by, I had a horrible migraine attack and ended up in the emergency room. The ER doctor did a tap where my opening pressure was 50. She is the first actual doctor that diagnosed me with IIH. From that point on, I have had several confirming taps and my nero-opthamologist also has confirmed it. I had VP shunt placement surgery on June 22, 2010, and have truly felt like a different person since then. I still have bad days, but not like I did. Now I just have to be mindful of the things I do and when I do them. I am confident that the shunt saved my life. Without it, I would not be here today.