Meningioma - Should I be concerned?

[calamari69]

Hello, I have a meningioma that is protruding into the cerebellopontine angle.  I have also been experiencing vertigo for 7 months, facial numbness, vision changes in my left eye and my neurosurgeon says that my symptoms are unrelated to the tumor.  All the doctors in the ER tell me that I am experiencing anxiety attacks.  Who should I believe?  everything I read tells me that my symptoms are related!  

[LivingInHope]

One HMO I was with called the department "Head and Neck" where ENT docs were.  There is special testing they can order to see how your vestibular system is functioning.

Meningiomas are benign in that they are non-cancerous & slow growing.   Yours is still definitely small enough to be treated by gamma knife, which supposed to kill the DNA of the tumor.  The gamma rays pass through other tissue at a lesser intensity so it's not supposed to harm any other brain tissue.... the many gamma rays' strength all culminates right at the tumor.

My relative did very well afterwards.  She had a tiny bit of bleeding from one of the screw sites and asked for a bandaid.  She spent just one night in the hospital after the procedure, just in case anything should happen, but that's the only thing that did.  She got some headaches later on that she thought might be related to the tumor shrinking.  

They followed up with repeated MRIs at given intervals to monitor the tumor.  It shrank for a while, and in later years remained the same size, not growing.  The surgery was done in early 2002 and I'm so glad she did this surgery.  Her father died from a brain tumor post open surgery many years ago, probably of the same variety of tumor, but his was discovered when it was about the size of a lemon.  

You just want to be sure that the docs are very experienced at doing gamma knife and have a high success rate.  For my relative, they did a double dye MRI first so they could do the mapping necessary to best aiming with the gamma rays they could.  

[rumpled]

ENT = ear nose throat doctor. Also know as an Otolaryngologists but that is even worse.

[calamari69]

Thanks for your advice.  My tumor is 1.68 x 1.32 still small but growing nevertheless.  My surgeon has given me 2 options, gamma knife or just wait and have another MRI in 1 1/2 yrs and revisit are options again at that time.  I have little kids ages 4 and 2 so I'm considering waiting.  When your relative had the gamma knife surgery, did she experience any side affects?  and was it successful?  Also, whats ENT I'm not familiar with  that abbreviation.  

Your input is appreciated!

[LivingInHope]

What's the size of the tumor?  If the meningioma is small enough, you might see if gamma knife surgery (called "bloodless" surgery because the only blood involves the little screws they use for the helmet they pass the gamma rays through (small bandaid size) might be right for you.  Gamma knife surgery is what a close relative of mine had for her meningioma located between her eyes.  They monitored it with MRIs for awhile prior to the surgery, and it was almost too late for her to be able to get gamma knife by the time she got referred, at her insistence for this type of surgery, which has an extremely low morbidity rate.

  Regarding the vertigo, you may also want to get special testing through an ENT.

[rumpled]

Do you have a copy of the MRI and the report? Do you have copies of any tests run - labwork etc?

Gather that and find another doctor. Also get to a neuro-opthomologist and get your eyes checked out.

A second opinion plus the eye check will help you out here, plus having your own records and knowledge (it sounds like you have some if not all of this already though) will help you get expert help. It may not help to go straight to a surgeon, but to a neuro first, and then get referred to a surgeon with the order for surgery. That is not to say you cannot look around for an excellent surgeon though!