I doubt that is affecting your IIH. but I think it's related. of course this is my twisted reasoning because I think there is an intimate relationship between OSA and IIH.
OSA is associated with a forward head posture. a forward head posture is awkward to maintain because the head weighs so much. it is supposed to be balanced just so on the neck, and if it is not because of adaptations to maintain a patent airway, then the cervical spine undergoes wear and tear, leading to the situation you are in. I think that the forward head posture and the abnormal relationship of the mandible in the neck caused by the jaw problem lead to compression of the jugular veins and are contributory to IIH, which is also worsened by the OSA. so it all goes hand in hand, in my mind.
if this is true, then if you were to have a neck fusion to deal with the pinched nerve etc, this would fix your neck position so that you could no longer adapt to keep your airway open, and your OSA might get worse.
it must be very painful and I'm so sorry you are going through this. I hope that you recover without needing surgery for it, or that they can get away with a foramenotomy.

Ouch RN wow i feel for you! I logic my way through things sometimes, but this isnt an area that i know anything about - i havent done any research, but from my thinking if you are wondering if the narrowing in the canal will cause a back up of pressure in the rest of the system? from a purely engineering point of view I think it wouldn't cause an increase of pressure as the "pump" (in this case not a pump more a source) and the "drain" (in this case several drainage methods) are all upstream of the "obstruction". so you have just truncated the system. what you might get is decrease in pressure downstream of the obstruction in the isolated section (ie down the spin below C5/6), but i am talking about pure engineering and obstructions, not real life and the fine nuances of some applied pressure from a herniation. so i am not really qualified to speculate!

However totally unrelated to IIH, my dad had a compression on the discs in his lower back that was putting pressure on his spinal canal and i know it caused him huge amounts of pain that the drugs didnt touch and a lot of difficulties - so big hugs in this difficult time because no you OBVIOUSLY didnt have enough to deal with! Hope you get better soon and are no in too much added pain - so much going on!

Hi RN, I can't really comment on whether there's any direct link between your herniated disc and IIH. I do know from my own experience (cervical degenerative disc disease C2-C7 with bilateral foraminal stenosis at C4/C5, moderate C5/C6) pain will cause your BP to rise, which won't really help your headaches at all and pain meds generally won't either. How it affects your CSF pressure though I couldn't say.
If you're interested I found www.spine-health.com/ to have some pretty good info on ways to manage spinal injuries, as well as some pretty good articles on the benefits/risks of surgery, if you decide to go down that path. Good luck with it all.

RN -- This is just stinko! So sorry you're having a pile-on right now. C-Spine herniation & even mild stenosis certainly can refer pain that aggravates HAs, especially with neck extension. But in terms of pressure, I leave that to the doctor, Brit, and Aussie :)

I do know that my ridiculous neuro spent much time evaluating my stenosis from C-Spine to Lumbar, looking for enough cord and/or thecal compression to justify my now redacted IIH DX.

Pain Management is treating my so-called Cervicogenic HA with Botox now and while I don't believe for a second that my C-spine as anything to do with my pressure HAs, it is helping my C-spine nerve root pain a bit. Just a thought.

How random to meet someone who's had direct experience with IIH! Do you think it makes this NS any better qualified to help you should you need IIH-related work done?

Bowing northeast and sending all good thoughts your way! PC

Thanks for the support and thoughts everyone! I highly recommend against developing any disc problems. :) Sorry to hear you already have them, Craig, it stinks. My pain is decreasing gradually and treatment so far has just been chiropractic, ice, and Percocet. The silver lining is that I've had a headache for months that I normally don't take anything for, so the huge bonus in having to treat my nerve pain is that I finally am getting a break from feeling my IIH headache. That part is lovely. I'll take what I can get, I guess.

PC - good question, I am guessing the NS wouldn't necessarily be in a better position to treat any IIH issues based on his family experience with it, since in his daughter's case resolution of her IIH was as simple as stopping the triggering medication. He was really conservative too, he offered me a referral for a cortisone injection but also said the best way to recover would be to let my body heal itself. I can't imagine surgeons say this often?! I like it though.