Sean Fischer’s mother has been sicker for decades. She would ask the same question several times, beds of migraine and unstable on her feet.
The mystery behind her decades of ailments was apparently resolved when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in June 2022.
Sean said: ‘We had spent countless hours prenzing about what could be wrong, but not once I thought the Alzheimer’s could be early. That diagnosis is from other families, I thought. Not from us. ‘
The Fischers met renowned neurologists and prepared the then-61-year-old to participate in a clinical study by Alzheimer’s for the drug-piglutam stat.
Then devastating news came that meant that Mrs. Fischer would not be eligible for the process – she suffered from a stubborn leak of spinal cord where in her spine, but doctors could not locate the source – and could not solve it.
They believed that it was probably the result of epidurals she had received during the birth – an injection that a person from his navel to their thighs.
It is a common option for pain relief during delivery and an estimated 61 percent of women who give birth receive an epidural.
After having suffered more than a decade, doctors said that a new procedure would do them to inject Paint in the spinal cord fluid from Mrs. Fischer to look for the leak – a small place in the middle of her back.
A few weeks after they sealed it, all her symptoms left and doctors said she didn’t really have Alzheimer’s – The small place in her back was actually the source of all her symptoms.
The mother of Sean Fischer, 61, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease after years of deterioration of memory, severe migraine, balance problems and nausea. But they had no idea that the source of her problems was a repairable leak
Mrs. Fischer’s Health struggle began Long before her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
It started in the spring of 2001, when Sean said he received a phone call from his father: Mama had pulled on the highway and broke from a sudden, crushing headache. Her doctor called it a migraine, but months later she lost hearing in one ear and was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease.
She adapted – avoiding movements that Vertigo have activated, wore a hearing aid in her forty and took daily medicines for the headache.
Even while they were sorrow softly, Sean written For the free press, she remained stable for him and his brothers, who never missed a football match, school musical or lunch.
In 2010, neurologists from Columbia University diagnosed her with a Chiari destination, a structural defect in which the brain is pushed through the opening at the foot of the skull.
They suspected that the deformation was caused by a cerebrospinal liquid leak, fueled by her three epidurals from the births of each of her sons.
Epidurals are extremely safe and are administered by placing a needle in the space of the lower spine just outside the membrane that surrounds the spinal cord.
It delivers anesthetic medication, which numbs the lower half of the body and blocks pain while the patient stays awake and alert.
However, it can occasionally result in a leak like the needle through the thin, tough membrane around the spinal cord containing the CSF contains the Dura matter.
An epidural is a safe, commonly used method of pain lighting during delivery, supplied by placing a needle in the epidural space in the lower spine
When this happens, part of the liquid that kisses and protects the brain and leaking the spinal cord into surrounding tissues. It can only be surgically resolved.
Over the years, the Lek had led to a loss in the volume of the cerebrospinal fluid, causing her brain to sink. This can lead to severe headache, nausea and vomiting, hearing changes, memory problems and double vision.
“I started high school in 2015, and around that time I started to notice the quiet disruption of my mother’s spirit,” Sean fored The free press.
Sean Fischer wrote about the wrong diagnosis of his mother of Alzheimer’s who was really a constellation of symptoms linked to a leak of cerebrospinal liquid
‘When we eat together, she would have trouble following recipes. She stared at her agenda for a long time; Understanding it seemed to require more effort than normal. She started repeating herself.
“By the time I left for the university in Rhode Island, the expression” You were already asked me that “a common chorus had become in the house where I grew up, but first we blamed her and told them to pay more attention.”
She saw doctors for headache, hearing and fear, nobody believed that there could be a common origin. Her memory problems had also deteriorated, which led to Mr and Mrs Fischer turning to the center of Nyu Langone Health for cognitive neurology.
‘My mother was extensively tested – and two months later the diagnosis came, with the finality of a punctuation mark. Alzheimer’s. When it touched her that there was no remedy, my mother was bedridden for three days, “Sean said.
Hope came with the study. But then doctors called the Fischers and asked them that the CSF -Lek would not allow her to participate.
Despair took over.
But a few weeks later, Mrs. Fischer’s doctor called to tell them about recent medical innovations with which surgeons could find and repair the leak, so that she can participate in the drug test.
Six months later, doctors placed a probe through the femoral artery in Mrs Fischer’s leg, fed it up to her spinal cord system and sealed the leak.
Sean said: ‘Two weeks later I visited home and found mother more alert than she had been in years. There was no absent look in her eyes. As the day progressed, I waited until she started to fade – but she was still wide awake at 10 p.m.
‘After three weeks her dizziness was gone and her physiotherapist told her that she no longer needed treatment because she no longer had balance problems. After four weeks she told us that she felt 20 years younger. ‘
After six weeks her problems with memory had completely disappeared.
‘And in the end Mama’s neurologist confirmed: she had no Alzheimer’s. The surgeons who determined the leak were shocked. They had never seen a recovery, “Sean said.
The family later learned that Cedars-Sinai Medical Center had published a newsletter with the subtitle a year before the procedure: “Doctors treating dementia should look for cerebrospinal liquid leak-a treatable cause of an other incurable condition.”
The study followed 21 patients with headache, severe fatigue and diagnoses of Chiari and dementia; Nine appeared to have a cerebrospinal liquid leak and repairing the resolved their symptoms completely resolved.
In the case of Sean, countless specialists in several hospitals treated her symptoms separately, with a view of the cause.
But they chose not to blame any doctor or institution. It was the system that was misunderstanded her, and ultimately the system that saved her.
‘More than whatever, we are grateful that a scientific breakthrough came at the right time; That the real cause of her suffering was found, “he said.
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