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Questions posted in the
Neurology and Neurosurgery Forum have been answered by doctors from The Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Question Title: Diagnosed with possible meningiomaForum: Neurology Forum
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Yesterday I was told I have an MRI found a 3 cm "uniformly inhancing mass adjacent to the dura in the left anterior, lateral frontal lobe", that is extra-axial and "demonstrates a dural tail", highly consistent with meningioma. I am a 38 year old overweight female presently taking Prozac, Tylenol and Aleve. I have been taking Prozac for nearly 8 years, 80 mg. daily. (It has been a life saver for me and my family.) The Tylenol and Aleve are taken almost daily for headaches and pain associated with a metal plate from a previous broken leg. I first went to see my optometrist because I was having trouble focusing even with glasses, she notices some papilledema and was referred to a opthamologist who said I was just having side effects from rfrequent migraines which I have had since my early 20's. The opthamologist said to return in 6 months to see the optometrist which I did last month and was sent to the University of Louisville eye clinic were they did an MRI and had me see the neurology clinic docs yesterday. When I saw the optometrist she told me it was probably pseudotumor cerebri and that it was easily treatable. So as a nursing student I did research (including mehelp - which turned out to be a GREAT source of info) and was sure that since my sister has pseudotumor, I did too and that a spinal tap and meds would be used to treat. However this was not the Needless to say that when the docs told me that there was a definite tumor I was shocked. They did their best to answer any questions I had, however, I can't remember everything they said. (Except to try to keep my blood pressure down, yeah right!) Now there are many question I have and hope you can answer some of them for me. If the tumor is a slow growing type, how long could I have had it and how could an opthamologist misdiagnose this? Does it have anything to do with taking Prozac for so long at such a high dose? What are reasonable treatment options? Given the location of the tumor can this explain some of the problems I have had making decisions in the last several months, including one that got me fired from my job. What are the chances of this coming back if it is surgically removed and the neuro doc recomends? How long can I safely wait to have the surgery? What would be the side effects of the surgery? Are there alternatives to conventional surgery? What else can you tell me about this and what to expect? Thank you for your time. = I will try to answer as many of your questions as possible, not all are easy to give definitive answers to at this stage. A meningioma is a very slow growing tumor, it may have been present for several years, there is no documented association with PRozac therapy. These tumors cannot be diagnosed without a scan, the optometrist suggested pseudotumor diagnosis on the basis of the papilledema, the two diagnoses cannot be separated without a scan. The best treatment is conventional surgery, this is a superficially located tumor and can be easily removed without any long term serious side effects, you could probably wait months and follow this with repeated scans before taking the plunge with surgery. The tumor sounds quite small to have caused these symptoms, it is possible that you could have both pseudotumor and a meningioma since meningiomas this size usually cause no symptoms.If there is a brain tumor to have this is the one as it is benign and easily treatable with relatively straightforward surgery.The surgeon should be able to advise you regarding recurrence after the tumor has been excised, full excision should be easily accomplished giving a minimal chance of recurrance.
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