Jessica A.
I woke up one day in July of '09 and started out the day just like any other day. I was taking a shower and all of a sudden I saw these creepy dark squiggly lines in my right eye. At first I thought a spider was literally in front of me and it made me jump but then realized that when I waved my hands and blinked it wasn't going away that I was having an eye issue. I proceeded to finish up my shower and by the time I was done, it had gotten better but had not gone away. I called my eye doctor's office and they thought it was best that I come in right away and have it checked out. He noticed that I had pressure on my optic nerves and sent me to a specialist. After a couple visits to that specialist to see if it was going to get better on it's own or not, (which it didn't) he diagnosed me with Intracranial Hypertension. It is increased cerebral spinal fluid in the brain which was putting pressure on my optic nerves. At this point it was putting pressure on both of them but it was worse on my right eye. I was having black outs consistently in my right eye. I was told that this is a rare condition and it's not known what causes it but that it typically happens to women my age who are overweight. It can cause headache, nausea, buzzing in the ears, double vision, swelling of the optic disc and at the worst stage - vision loss. The main thing is to prevent vision loss. There are no drugs out there to reduce the swelling. They have drugs to manage symptoms -ie. headaches and such. The only things they have out there to deal with the swelling that I am aware of are a spinal tap (which is a temporary fix) and a shunt (which is a more permanent fix). I had to get a spinal tap done initially because my vision was in jeapordy. My doctors have told me now that I need to lose the weight as my best bet to get rid of this condition, otherwise I can forsee a future of numerous spinal taps, or to have brain surgery to have a shunt put in, neither of which I want to have. I definitely found it as a wake up call that I need to lose weight! 03-15-10 Attended Seminar
04-19-10 Pre-op w/PCP for EGD Procdure
04-20-10 Meet w/Program Coordinator,PT,Dietician & have labs done.
04-29-10 EGD Procedure
04-30-10 1st Supervised Dietician Visit
05-21-10 2nd Supervised Dietician Visit
05-24-10 Had Gallbladder removed
06-18-10 3rd Supervised Dietician Visit
07-09-10 4th Supervised Dietician Visit
08-06-10 5th Supervised Dietician Visit
09-03-10 6th Supervised Dietician Visit
10-12-10 Psych Evaluation
11-15-10 Psych Follow-up/Approval
11-30-10 Meet w/Dietician,Pharmacy Consult,Surgeon Consult
12-01-10 Started Pre-op Diet - High Protein, Low Carbs
12-03-10 Paperwork submitted to insurance
12-16-10 Notice of insurance approval!! Scheduled for surgery. Yay!
12-30-10 Pre-op w/PCP for surgery
01-07-11 Meet w/Dietician and w/nurse pre-op educator
01-14-11 Surgery Day!!
