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Cerebral Aneurysm in Infant
I have a 7 week old son has a brain aneurysm rupture at age 4 weeks. I am interested in the prognosis of other infants or young children that have survived an aneurysm through surgery. Any history or information you could share would be appreciated.
He was admitted in hospital due to fever where aneurysm may have potentially ruptured,seized for 3 hours, lot of blood in his brain, went through coiling surgery, had 2 angioplasty to control cerebral vasospasm. As of today he is moving his right part of the body, left side, off the ventilator(breathing by himself) still cannot track us with eyes, not sure if he can hear....Any insights or expert prognosis is appreciated....
Shalin
He was admitted in hospital due to fever where aneurysm may have potentially ruptured,seized for 3 hours, lot of blood in his brain, went through coiling surgery, had 2 angioplasty to control cerebral vasospasm. As of today he is moving his right part of the body, left side, off the ventilator(breathing by himself) still cannot track us with eyes, not sure if he can hear....Any insights or expert prognosis is appreciated....
Shalin
I came across your stories while trying to obtain any information on infant brain aneurysm. There isn't much out there!
My two week old is presently admitted at Doernbecher Children's Hospital. We came here after spending a night in the ER at a different hospital where we brought him in because he had a high-pitched cry, was lethargic and limp, pale and refusing to eat (he is exclusively breast fed), and then he gurgled up thick white curdled mucousy milk. (Lottie816- I noticed that his symptoms were the same as your daughters, which I found interesting. He checked out fine in the ER, only had highly elevated glucose levels, which they accredited to his body's response to whatever was going on, levels were just slightly elevated when we left.
After alerting the nurses/Dr.s of an arm twitching which overnight became progressively more frequent and noticable and traveled down to his feet he had a CT scan which showed blood on his brain. We were transferred down to the pediatric ICU where he had an MRI that showed a stroke on the top right part of his brain (very close to the midline) Followed by an angiogram through his femarol artery that showed a aneurysm. It was coiled as well as some of the surrounding vessels and besides a blood clot in his leg where the angiogram was inserted (which took about 72 hours to resolve, for blood flow to fully reach his toes and return to normal) there have been no other side effects. He has not had any other seizures (the twitching I wrote about) since before his angiogram and he seems to be doing better and better everyday. He is now alert, tracking us, following our voices and seems to be acting as he was before all this started.
There is no history on either me or my husbands side of his family of any types or disorders, No sicknesses, we both are very healthy and come from health families as well. This is our third boy, and out previous two are healthy.
One of his neurosurgeons seems to think that this all happened due to the brain being "pushed" up against the skull during delivery. I had a normal healthy pregnancy with a vaginal delivery and 20 min. of pushing. He had high apgar scores at 1 and 10 min. (9 and 10) and was previously healthy before all this happened. There has been no trauma at home and he hasn't been out of my care, so this was all very baffling. The neurosurgeon had found an article from his predecessor at this same hospital stating that a quick delivery might correlate to the aneurysm. This would be due to the head being compressed while passing through the birth canal but not the brain as it doesn't have time to compress with the skull.
I am curious to know what your birth/pregnancy stories are.
As of this time there doesn't seem to be any side effects (it's only been 9 days) from the stroke or aneurysm. And even though he is on an anti-seizure medication (keppra) we haven't seen any since before his coiling procedure. Examinations done by PT/OT and ophthalmology all went well and we were told that we would not need any future appts. to follow up with them.
Our biggest concern at this time is what does the future hold for our little guy. Since there are really no documented cases it's hard to know the answers to our questions. L-Edwards- you said your son is 19, has he had a pretty normal childhood?
My two week old is presently admitted at Doernbecher Children's Hospital. We came here after spending a night in the ER at a different hospital where we brought him in because he had a high-pitched cry, was lethargic and limp, pale and refusing to eat (he is exclusively breast fed), and then he gurgled up thick white curdled mucousy milk. (Lottie816- I noticed that his symptoms were the same as your daughters, which I found interesting. He checked out fine in the ER, only had highly elevated glucose levels, which they accredited to his body's response to whatever was going on, levels were just slightly elevated when we left.
After alerting the nurses/Dr.s of an arm twitching which overnight became progressively more frequent and noticable and traveled down to his feet he had a CT scan which showed blood on his brain. We were transferred down to the pediatric ICU where he had an MRI that showed a stroke on the top right part of his brain (very close to the midline) Followed by an angiogram through his femarol artery that showed a aneurysm. It was coiled as well as some of the surrounding vessels and besides a blood clot in his leg where the angiogram was inserted (which took about 72 hours to resolve, for blood flow to fully reach his toes and return to normal) there have been no other side effects. He has not had any other seizures (the twitching I wrote about) since before his angiogram and he seems to be doing better and better everyday. He is now alert, tracking us, following our voices and seems to be acting as he was before all this started.
There is no history on either me or my husbands side of his family of any types or disorders, No sicknesses, we both are very healthy and come from health families as well. This is our third boy, and out previous two are healthy.
One of his neurosurgeons seems to think that this all happened due to the brain being "pushed" up against the skull during delivery. I had a normal healthy pregnancy with a vaginal delivery and 20 min. of pushing. He had high apgar scores at 1 and 10 min. (9 and 10) and was previously healthy before all this happened. There has been no trauma at home and he hasn't been out of my care, so this was all very baffling. The neurosurgeon had found an article from his predecessor at this same hospital stating that a quick delivery might correlate to the aneurysm. This would be due to the head being compressed while passing through the birth canal but not the brain as it doesn't have time to compress with the skull.
I am curious to know what your birth/pregnancy stories are.
As of this time there doesn't seem to be any side effects (it's only been 9 days) from the stroke or aneurysm. And even though he is on an anti-seizure medication (keppra) we haven't seen any since before his coiling procedure. Examinations done by PT/OT and ophthalmology all went well and we were told that we would not need any future appts. to follow up with them.
Our biggest concern at this time is what does the future hold for our little guy. Since there are really no documented cases it's hard to know the answers to our questions. L-Edwards- you said your son is 19, has he had a pretty normal childhood?
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Hi Shalin!
I am so sorry to hear that your little one went through so much at such a tender age. Honestly speaking, it is very difficult to ascertain prognosis in such cases. While aneurysm surgeries are generally successful, aneurysm in infancy are generally uncommon. Hence there is not enough data to make a future prediction. The prognosis varies from child to child and depends on whether the child has infection or hemorrhage after surgery. However, infants fare better than adults after aneurysm surgeries provided there are no other malformations. There have been cases of children leading a normal lifespan with no or minimal handicap. However, your baby's neurosurgeon can guide you best.
Take care!
I am so sorry to hear that your little one went through so much at such a tender age. Honestly speaking, it is very difficult to ascertain prognosis in such cases. While aneurysm surgeries are generally successful, aneurysm in infancy are generally uncommon. Hence there is not enough data to make a future prediction. The prognosis varies from child to child and depends on whether the child has infection or hemorrhage after surgery. However, infants fare better than adults after aneurysm surgeries provided there are no other malformations. There have been cases of children leading a normal lifespan with no or minimal handicap. However, your baby's neurosurgeon can guide you best.
Take care!
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