Brain Tumor Symptoms

What to look out for with brain tumor symptoms, I wish we knew ages ago.

Some of the things that appeared could have easily been put down to old age, and they appeared to be quite unrelated.

A lot of my dad's brain tumor symptoms were quite mild and really he had had for years.
Things like shaking of the hands, depth perception, left eye problems.

It's funny (not ha ha funny but strange funny) my mum always had an inkling that something was wrong. Dad had done some odd things for some time. Nothing really out there. Just little things that were a bit odd and unusual. This all played on her a bit and all the family didn't really think too much of it. But there were all brain tumor symptoms, just very mild. The brain tumor symptoms didn't become bad until things went down hill very very fast.

I look back now and still think the biggest brain tumor symptom that we should have picked up on was the problem solving.

And you know what the second biggest brain tumor symptom was. He went to the optometrist to get his eyes checked. The optometrist said that dad had had a mild stroke. his peripheral vision in the left eye was terrible. Dad didn't think he had had a stroke at any stage. but the optometrist kept on about it. Little did we know then that was a brain tumor symptom. The optometrist had found it by accident when testing vision. Funny how these little things are easy to see now we know what brain tumor symptoms are.

If you suspect something, get it checked sooner rater than later. Time matters.

brain tumor symptoms and steroids

Funny I often wonder if my dad's brain tumor symptoms are related to the dexamethasone or the tumor itself.

I know these drugs help relieve the brain tumor symptoms, but sometimes I wonder what the cost is.

It is the devil or the deep blue sea really. In our case you take the dex while under treatment then continue on. once dad stopped taking the dexmeth he brain tumor symptoms went wild. We could see daily changes the second he stopped the dex. That was a scary time in our lives.

We were told, now I will try to repeat this.
The dex stops swelling of the brain, since dad had had 2 brain surgery operations in a matter of a week that was a concern.
The dex also has the side effect of slowing the tumor down. this combination will often see a reduction in brain tumor symptoms.
And it did in our case.
However once you come off dex , and need to go back on it, it is much less effective.

There really are lots of tough questions to make.


News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | HEADLINES | Better brain tumor help

For thousands of patients with brain tumors, managing the side effects of treatment is half the battle. Many patients must take steroids, like dexamethasone, to reduce the swelling in their brains. Without these potent drugs, the swelling around the tumor can cause neurological problems.

"The swelling can sometimes cause a much worse deficit than the tumor does by itself. Steroids work very well at suppressing the swelling, in general, but the problem is, over time, steroids can carry a lot of side effects," Dr. Nick Avgeropoulos said.

Some of those side effects include
• Insomnia
• Psychosis
• Blood pressure and blood sugar irregularities
• Weight gain
• Muscle weakness

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