I was recently diagnosed with an aneurysm on my internal carotid artery. The team at the Wessex Neurological Centre have told me it’s a borderline decision on whether to do surgery or monitor it and that the choice is up to me. If they proceed with surgery they would need to do an endovascular stent because of the shape and location.
I’m really struggling to decide which way to jump, I don’t even know what questions to ask and honestly both options seem pretty terrifying. Any advice or pointers to places where I can do my own research or get a second opinion would be great - thanks!
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Spru
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HiI totally understand the emotions you're feeling.
I have an internal carotid aneurysm.
It was diagnosed in 2015 with a 5mm aneurysm. I freaked out! Thought I was going to die or worse- suffer a bleed that left me with symptoms of a stroke.
I don't think we get enough emotional support. The consultants I've seen can throw statistics at us and say "don't worry , go live your life" but there's no one, or not in my case, who you can talk to about your fears.
I chose to go with monitoring as per the advice. A few years later I started getting sharp pains in my eyes. I was scared. My grandchildren were very young at the time and I use to take care of them one day a week which included driving them to playschool. I decided to have the aneurysm coiled.
I went in knowing the risks or so I thought. The op was abandoned. The risk to my eyesight was too great I was told.
What I wasn't told was that the artery in my leg where they'd gone in had been damaged whilst inserting the tube which would carry the coils. Later that day I got up to go to the loo but could hardly walk I was in so much pain.
So now I have peripheral artery 'disease' /damage.
What I learnt from this experience is not to do something out of fear.
If you do go ahead,
- ask for the step by step procedure so you know exactly what it involves
- ask about the risk of damage to the artery where the tube is inserted
,- ask about the option of having the tube inserted in your arm, not your leg. There is research info available about the advantage of this approach
- be aware, as I'm sure you are, that complications can arise
So, it's now 8 years since my aneurysm was found. I have it monitored every 2 years. It's currently 6mm.
When I look back, I believe I had this aneurysm as far back as 2009. That's when I first complained about a sharp intermittent pain in my eye. Nothing was found at the Eye hospital. I didn't have a scan.
I can't advise you what to do but if I could put the clock back I wouldn't have had the attempt at coiling.
Thanks Andersl, that’s helpful. Do you have any suggestions about where I can do more reading on the procedure and specifically about the research on inserting the tube in the arm?
I actually don’t know… I’ll be sure to ask, but in the scan I saw it looked pretty big - it’s multi lobular, and to put it bluntly it looks pretty gnarly…
It always scary when we hear that word aneurysm . I just found out in may I have an aneurysm the left side of my brain. 23 years ago I had a right side aneurysm clipped .First brain surgery. Second brain surgery three months later to revive the blood from the little aneurysm that burst. So now I face it again . I would definely get a second opinion. I went to a neurosurgeon she wanted to do coiling . Then I went to the neuro radiologist who monitor me in early 2000 he has a 3d computer image of my brain I could see everything he said it smaller than the neurosurgeon said it was . He thought with my history and it only 3mm he said he doesn’t like to do coiling unless it 5mm or bigger. So I have chosen to monitor it . If was very hard to come to this decision but I don’t know how long this aneurysm been there it could have been there for years we could not bring up the old image to check . He said don’t let blood pressure get high which I have pretty low bp don’t smoke I have never smoke. Try to avoid high stress. This was giving me stress until I made the decision to monitor it then my stress felt lifted.
I would ask if you chose to monitor how often do you need to come in how will they monitor .
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