Aneurysm

I have a 2 cm wide neck aneurysm in the basilar artery that has been coiled and stented. It now pushes on my brain stem. The last procedure was 10/07. Is it possible that the coils and stents are causing to much pressure, or to re-phase is it possible that the coils and stents are taking up to much room in my brain? I ask because every day after a few hours up I get running noise, talking is strained, full feeling in my head and I am not to concentrate. If I lay down for an hour or so it eases up and I can get up again for a few more hours and it starts all over again.

[midasrex]

This is the problem with coiling, even stent-assisted coiling as you have had. The coil ball sits in the aneurysm and prevents it bleeding by blocking the dome (the bit that can bleed) from the flowing blood. So the aneurysm is "secured." However the pressure of the blood in the artery the aneurysm arises from can still press through the stent onto the coil ball, and thereby onto the wall of the aneurysm. So whilst the aneurysm isn't at risk of bleeding as before, it is still pressurised and may regrow or enlarge. As another problem, large aneuryms may have a lot of blood clot in the wall. The coil ball sits against the blood clot and gradually impacts into it, so the occlusion of the aneurysm isn't as good as it was when it was performed, and the aneurysm remains pressurised and can continue to grow.

This doesn't apply to all large coiled aneurysms of course and it's often a sucessful procedure and should be considered expecially for aneurysms in difficult locations for surgery, the basilar artery is the classic area to prefer coiling to surgery as the surgery is pretty challenging.

So in answer to your question, yes it's very possible that the aneurysm and coils are presing on your brainstem. Your symptoms are a bit vague and I'd expect them to be constant rather than variable, maybe involving double vision, swallowing or choking problems, something like that, but it sounds to me that you should be under pretty close surveillance by your neurosurgeon and/or endovascular specialist.

Best wishes