Pseudotumor Cerebri Support Group

Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) is a neurological disorder that is characterized by increased intracranial pressure, in the absence of a tumor or other diseases affecting the brain or its lining. Diagnosis requires brain scans and lumbar puncture. Characteristic symptoms are headache, transient visual obscurations or transient visual loss in one or both eyes usually lasting...

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Sunshine0916 07/31/2013

I have not had to many problems with my PTC...however, when I laugh, you know that kind that it's just soooo funny you can't help but crack up, it's sooooo painful and it makes me very sad!! Anyone else have this? How do you deal with it?

Sophiasmom06 07/31/2013

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23117256

this is a valsalva trigger.
mine is gone since I had jaw surgery. I think it has to do with jugular reflux.

SeaSprite 07/31/2013

Who knew?

Me, too, sunshine.

SeaSprite 07/31/2013

Wait a minute - I have a question. I don't have stenosis. Just mildly narrowed venous sinuses. Would this still apply?

canamerica88 07/31/2013

I have this problem, too.
It also hurts to sneeze, cough, cry, orgasm.

canamerica88 07/31/2013

And I don't have any stenosis, either, seasprite.

Sophiasmom06 08/01/2013

yeah I don't have stenosis. but just as medicine is clueless about the human airway being way too narrow, to the point I don't think we even know what normal is, I suspect we don't know what normal jugular venous caliber ought to be. so even though my neck CTA/Venogram was normal prior to surgery, my valsalva trigger is now gone. my mandible/tongue was moved forwards by 1cm. I think there must be something dynamic going on too. like Mary has noted a big difference with how she holds her head. I think I get this effect sometimes too. a long time ago, I would only get dizzy while singing if I was driving. there must have been something about my required head posture while driving that affected my jugular veins. since the surgery, I move my head all over the place while talking, which I wasn't doing before, I hated to move my head.

I hadn't noted much of a problem with laughing but my life has been so crappy that I think I just don't laugh much. I don't "crack up".

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