14 year old just received VP shunt for hydrocephalus
 

My 14 year old daughter developed hydrocephalus in November and had a VP shunt placed. they have no idea what caused theproblem. She just bega having nausea ad headaches. Sh s doing well with a few problems and wondering about them. Sometimes when she wakes up she is nauseaus and throws up.... anyone have this? Afterward she feels fine. She feels hungry ALOT and feels like she needs to eat slowly. Thanks

I have never had headaches & numbness until Jan 2010 and it started with a clicking noise in my head. Then, It was a continuous pain in a specific place in my head, a pressure pain like someone had their fist inside my head pushing to the top of my head, mine on the left top.I also experienced numbness in the left side of my face. I was diagnosed with Chiari I Malformation 11/2010. I then had a MRI with a study of the flow of Spinal Fluid and that is when I was also diagnosed with Arnold's Chiari 11/2010. My Chiari was causing my spinal fluid not to flow and causing the pressure in my head (hydrocephelus)(Arnold's Chiari) Immediately 11/2010 they put a shunt in my head to let the fluid flow instead of being trapped in my head (immediate relief). It took almost a year to get the correct diagnosis and a different doctor to diagnosis it correctly. The shunt relieved the pressure pain but did not relieve all my symptons. Pain when I sneezed, coughed, or gagged. That was from the Chiari where my "brain tonsils" were pushed through the opening in the base of my skull due to my skull being too small for my brain. I then had Chiari decompression surgery 2/2011 where they make the opening @ base of skull larger and removed a part of my vertebrae to give my brain more room. This surgery helped with the remaining pain I was experiencing. I still have to have the shunt because the aquaducts that allow flow are small and have evidently gotten smaller with age. I was 48 when all this began. It usually effects people earlier since it's a congenital condition (born with it). The doctors have no idea why it affected me at such late age since I don't remember any injury to my head. I have had 8 shunt surgeries from 11/2010-10/2011. The first sign that the shunt is malfunctioning is vomiting. Hope this information is useful.

I would have this checked out, vomitting is not necessarily a good thing, I am wondering if there could be a leak somewhere. They would probably do a shunt followup study where she'd have an MRI and they'd inject some radioactive dye into the valva and follow it down.

I have had this issue, but usually it's a headache with extreme pressure in my head, till I vomit, and then I am fine. I remember that sometimes this is what it was like when I was a kid before they found out that I had a tumor and hydro... so definitely get it checked out.

Strange it only happens every few weeks. Sometimes after exercise.

You may be on to something. I am wondering if it could be activity related. I often times get this way after exercise myself. When I was younger I did landscaping for work for a while, once a week, and every time right after my day was done I got the worst headaches, nausea and shunt pain. Interesting thought.

14 year old just received VP shunt for hydrocephalus
 

I was dx'ed (diagnosed) with hydro at 30yrs of age,and because I was born in 1954, of course the technology wasn't there back in the 50's to diagnose this. I was shunted in 1984, and I still have issues today. Perhaps the dr. can give your daughter a perscription for something ( a pill) to eliviate her vomiting. Maybe keeping saltimes & a small can of sprite would help
You might try to feed her 5-6 small meals a day. You didn't say if she was on medications to prevent seizures or not....some seizure meds will cause your appetite to increase.

At 14 yrs of age,she is of course worried about how others will perceive her. Even though my parents didn't know what was wrong with me until I was 30 yrs old (and by that time I had married and had 3 children. After being shunted we were blessed with a 4th child,our third son) the best advice that my parents were given was to let me do whatever I felt I could, and ignore what I could not do....in other words, let me set the pace for my life. Another thing, don't let your daughter's illness affect you either. Some kids use an illness to be able to do things.....Treat you daughter as a normal child/teenager. She after all had a surgery, to sustain her life...she isn't chronically ill. Just continue to watch over her, don't hover over her.

IF some of the home remedy doesn't help, return to the doctor and ask for meds to help stop the vomiting ...or perhaps you could get some medication for nausea as well.

hope this helps !

Well - it turned out to be a shunt malfunction. She woke last Saturday with headache and throwing up. The ER did a CT which showed O.K. The neurologist decided to do a lumbar puncture to test the pressure and it was slightly hig, but the CF fluid was cloudy and protein levels high. They went in and found the end attached to the venticles was clogged due to the high protein. They replaced it. The only problems she is having is 500 mg protein in CSF when it should be 45 and some low T cells. Tommorrow she is having a gallium test. But, it looks like the intermitant headaches and nausea were caused by the shunt.

Yes all the time!
 

I had my first seizure just after the 6th grade or when I was 12, that was in 1971. Since then I've had several different revisions the last one being just over a month ago. I can say this I always have felt exactly like your daughter and I'm now 53 years old. By rhe way I have to go back in next week because the Medtronics programmable vp shunt is not working. I've had six and all of them failed too. The next shunt is going to be a fixed pressure shunt like the one I had for 34 years until 2002 and then changed with great regret. A neurosurgeon a UCSF told me that the only reason doctors put programmable shunts in is to keep you coming back. God Bless you and your daughter and the best of luck to her too.....