Some of you may remember that, last October, I did a weekly post of spina bifida facts in honor of October being Spina Bifida Awareness month. I’m going to do the same this month for hydrocephalus. Not sure yet if it’ll be a weekly or bi-weekly thing, though. What I might do is do general facts one week and the next week do said facts as they pertain to me.
1) Hydrocephalus (which comes from the Greek words ‘hydro’ (water) and ‘kephalos’ (head)) is a chronic medical condition in which too much cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) accumulates in the brain due to an inability of the body to reabsorb the fluid properly. The increased fluid causes the brain to swell and, if left untreated, can lead to brain hemorrhaging and herniation.
2) Hydrocephalus can be either congenital (accompanying/caused by such things as spina bifida, craniosynostosis, and Dandy-Walker syndrome) or acquired (due to things like meningitis, tumors and cysts, or severe head trauma).
3) It is particularly common in people who have the myelomeningocele form of SB
4) There are two types of hydrocephalus: Non-communicating (wherein something in the body is obstructing the natural flow of CSF) and communicating (wherein there’s no visible obstruction, but the body still cannot/will not reabsorb CSF naturally)
5) There is a type of communicating hydrocephalus called normal pressure hydrocephalus. More commonly found in elderly patients, it is the specific result of impaired CSF re-absorption in the arachnoid granulations.
6) There is no cure for hydrocephalus. The only proven-effective treatment for it is a cerebral shunt. This is basically a catheter inserted into one of the ventricles of the brain that is routed to drain into another part of the body.
7) Shunts can and occasionally do break or get infected. Symptoms of a malfunctioning shunt include headaches, nausea, vomiting, photophobia/light sensitivity, weakness in the arms and legs, extreme personality change, facial distortion due to a weakening of the muscles, and double-vision. From my own experience, the symptoms arrive in multiples and can come out of nowhere.
