Pseudo Tumor

Well, we had a little scare recently.

Right after our return from Tybee, kiddo had an eye appointment.

Good news first....she no longer is required to wear glasses, her vision has improved.

Bad news....she has an elevated optic nerve.

Of course, I looked up what that meant and of course I keep stumbling on brain tumors, etc, but nothing about innocent things.

We had to go to a specialist and get it checked out.  I had a grouchy, nervous kid on my hands all week leading up to it, so I really couldn't wait to get it over on so many levels.

The doc looked at it, looked some more, hummm'd and hummm'd and asked more questions.

Finally he looked again and said "What meds did you say she took recently that she's not currently?"

Both of them are known for causing this problem and it's called a pseudo tumor cerebri.

It looks like a brain tumor to the untrained eye and without attention can cause pressure of the brain against the skull.

We stopped the meds immediately.  The meds were for acne anyway. I'd rather have a child with a broke out face than not have her or have brain issues.  It wasn't like we'd even requested acne meds for her. She went for a normal appointment and doctor suggested it. I wasn't there that day, but her and dad said yes.  I would have too, I'm sure.

That apparently has been the reason for her headaches as well, but with hormones, known history of migrained in birth family and side effects to meds, it wasn't obvious that there was a problem.

She still has to go see a neurologist and also get an MRI and make sure all is well.

They said within 2 weeks, things should go back to normal now that she's completely off the meds.

The doctor that found the problem kept stressing not to get worked up, that about 1 in 1000 have that and that it was a reasonable med for her doctor to put her on in theory, just didn't agree with her.

He must've been reading my mind.

The one that put her on this is the same one that
1--called her fat
2--told her she couldn't find good guy if she was fat
3--told me to lock up the food
4--told her to jump an hour a day on the trampoline (and immediately after, she hurt her ankle again)
5--took her off diabetes meds and then when she went back to endocrinologist, they fussed because she hadn't been taking her meds.

Yeah, all that was lumped together, so it's not like one happened and we kept going.

She's already been terminated as kiddos doctor, but it just added fuel to the fire on that, whether it was a rational suggestion to that that med or not.

Stress level has decreased some, but not entirely, as we have a sibling visit coming up soon.

Stay tuned.....