Brain Tumor Symptoms

We have all gone through this.

2007-10-28T16:19:00.001-07:00

This is just what we have gone through.
But the main thing here is to ask questions and look at alternatitives. The best may not be surgery, so you will haev to ask to find out.

Episode 4-”The Plan”

That’s five days from now. She would be admitted to the emergency room at the hospital now and held in the intensive care unit for one day to evaluate her condition and to treat her headaches. I hate to admit this, but one of my first fears had to do with wether our health care coverage would be ready for the hospital bills that I pictured were already in to six digits and climbing on the first 5 minute phone call. Then, I chastised myself and started thinking about all that advice I had heard about a second opinion. Maybe they had it wrong. Those lime disease bugs started sounding better all the time. As things settled down in my head, a list of questions finlly started to form:

1. How certain was the MRI?

2.Was it also read by another physician?

3. Yes, the pathologist has already reviewed it and had a consultation on the diagnosis. Three doctors agreed on the brain tumor diagnosis. That made it very unlikely that it could be anything else.

4. What alternatives were there to brain surgery?

5. Where should we have the work done?

Brain Tumor Vaccine

2007-10-11T16:16:00.001-07:00

This will be too late for my dad, but it is very interesting way of treating glioma. I wish them every success with their trials.

UCSF News Office - UCSF launches new phase of brain tumor vaccine trial

The Brain Tumor Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco has initiated a Phase 2 clinical trial of an investigational vaccine for treating glioma, a recurrent cancer of the central nervous system that occurs primarily in the brain.

The primary objective of the new trial is to evaluate overall survival in patients receiving vitespen vaccination (trademarked as Oncophage).

In an earlier Phase 1 trial of the vaccine, UCSF researchers showed that it was effective in stimulating the patient’s immune system to attack tumor cells. Of the 12 patients treated, all showed an immune response.

An option for brain tumors.

2007-09-11T21:32:00.001-07:00

Although this will be too late for my dad, it is great to hear of some advances.

I hope all this goes well.

Tailored virus kills brain cancer cells in mice

Tailored virus kills brain cancer cells in mice

Sept. 11, 2007
Courtesy M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
and World Science staff

A customized virus in a mouse study killed stem cells that cause an extremely aggressive, tenacious brain cancer, researchers report.

Scientists at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas announced the findings in the Sept. 18 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The virus “can target and eliminate the cells that drive brain tumors,” by essentially forcing them to eat themselves, said study co-author Juan Fueyo. The researchers said they expect to submit a request to launch a clinical trial of the virus, called Delta-24-RGD, this month.

They tested the virus against the most aggressive brain tumor, glioblastoma multiforme, which originates in specialized cells known as glia, Fueyo said. Glia surround and support neurons, the brain cells that conduct electrical signals.

Glioblastoma multiforme resists radiation and chemotherapy treatments and is so invasive that surgery almost never eliminates it, Fueyo and colleagues said. Patients suffering from this malignancy live on average for about 14 months with treatment.

lack of effective therapies?? why were we not told.

2007-09-09T15:47:00.001-07:00

It is interesting what you read. Especially after the event, this little quote caught my eye.

"lack of effective therapies" we were never told about that ever.....

Brain Tumor Stem Cells Killed By Experimental Anti-Cancer Drug

Our study lends evidence to the idea that the lack of effective therapies for glioblastoma may be due to the survival of a rare population of cancer stem cells that appear immune to conventional radiation and chemotherapy," says Charles G. Eberhart, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of pathology, ophthalmology and oncology, who led the work. "Hedgehog inhibition kills these cancer stem cells and prevents cancer from growing and may thus develop into the first stem cell-directed therapy for glioblastoma."

survival less than one year! Glioblastoma

2007-09-09T15:44:00.001-07:00

This sounds like my dad.
It is likely he will lat less than a year.

Expression of Interleukin-13 Receptor {alpha}2 in Glioblastoma Multiforme: Implications for Targeted Therapies -- Jarboe et al. 67 (17): 7983 -- Cancer Research

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common primary malignant brain tumor and despite treatment with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, the median survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme is ~1 year.

how can you help someone witha brain tumor

2007-08-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

there are lots of ways to help someone or the families if they have a brain tumor.
check this audio out, it is from ww.dadsbraintumor.com

how to help

brain tumor symptoms audio

2007-08-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

this is an audio clip about dad's brain tumor symptoms that we have just added to the dadsbraintumor.com website.
I hope the link works OK.

MP3 Dads brain tumor symptoms

Brain Tumor Symptoms

2007-08-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-21T17:47:00.001-07:00

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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Brain Tumor Symptoms and Brain Position

2007-08-20T22:16:00.001-07:00

The difference of brain tumor symptoms when they are in different parts of the brain. Stands to reason when we know that different parts of the brain control different things. Also you need to watch out for personality changes with brain tumors, that is the scariest thing when someone's personality changes.

clipped from www.cancerbackup.org.uk

Frontal lobe tumours - Changes in personality and intellect. Unco-ordinated walking or weakness of one side of the body. Loss of smell, occasional speech difficulties.

Parietal lobe - Difficulty in speaking or understanding words. Problems with writing or reading. Difficulty in co-ordinating certain movements. Difficulty finding your way around. Difficulty with numbers (doing simple calculations)

Occipital lobe - Loss of vision on one side.

Temporal lobe - Fits may cause strange sensations: a feeling of fear or intense familiarity (dé jà vu), strange smells or blackouts. Speech difficulties and memory problems.

Cerebellum - Lack of co-ordination which affects walking and speech (dysarthria), unsteadiness, flickering involuntary movement of the eyes (nystagmus). Vomiting and neck stiffness.

Brain stem - Unsteadiness and an unco-ordinated walk. Facial weakness, a one-sided smile or drooping eyelid. Double vision.

Brain Tumor Symptoms

2007-08-20T22:04:00.001-07:00

Interesting and it depends on where the brain tumor is, but the maths symptom is something worth considering

clipped from www.dadsbraintumor.com

depth
perception ( a bit scary when he was driving)

Shaking of the left hand

an inability to process simple maths problems

dragging of the left leg

a problem with his right eye, focus and peripheral vision

and in the end, no balance.

I would
like to draw your attention to the Maths Problem, I
have since heard of two other people that had a brain tumor.
Their tumors were in different parts of the brain.
However they both had the same issues with simple problem
solving. This stands out to us now as about 12 months before
my Dad was diagnosed he was covering a deck. The deck was a
rectangle and he could not figure out how to calculate the area of
shade cloth he would need. He KNEW he should be able to do
it, but just could not figure out HOW to do it. (length by
breadth) This from a person that had never had any issues
with
this type of problem in the past. We put it down to getting
old. but now we know why.

video library

2007-08-20T21:09:00.001-07:00

this is a great site with heaps and heaps of video information on brain tumors.

I really suggest you get to this site and have a look.

there is videos on treatment, surviving, nutrition, experimental treatments etc.

Rainbow Memorial Video Library

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brain tumor treatment options

2007-08-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

this is a very very interesting article on treating brain tumors.

when we heard the news
"there is nothing more we can do"

we went looking for options, after all what have we got to loose.

A huge video library of brain tumor options

2007-08-20T20:52:00.001-07:00

Video library, there is heaps and heaps of information here on brain tumors treatments and a whole heap of other stuff.

If you looking for brain tumor info check this out.

Rainbow Memorial Video Library

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Brain Tumor Questions to Ask

2007-08-19T21:48:00.001-07:00

Brain Tumor questions to ask.

What You Need To Know About™ Brain Tumors - National Cancer Institute

A person who needs a biopsy may want to ask the doctor the following questions:

*

Why do I need a biopsy? How will the biopsy affect my treatment plan?
*

What kind of biopsy will I have?
*

How long will it take? Will I be awake? Will it hurt?
*

What are the chances of infection or bleeding after the biopsy? Are there any other risks?
*

How soon will I know the results?
*

If I do have a brain tumor, who will talk to me about treatment? When?

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brain tumor symptoms from my point of view

2007-08-19T18:59:00.000-07:00

I look back now and can see all the classic brain tumor symptoms of my dad.
It is sad that we did not know what to look for earlier, other wise we may have done a little more about investigating his symptoms.

His symptoms were typical of brain tumors, but were attributed to getting older.
shaking hand
dragging the left leg
slight vision imparment
maths or problem solving ability affected
he also said an odd thing or two.

etc.
the thing was he had a CT scan at a check up and it showed no problems. we later found out that he should have had a contrasting CT scan, and should have had a different doctor. the one we had was not qualified to read contrasting CT scans.

Maybe if we had known all this prior we we have invested more time into finding things out. my mother suspected problems for over a year, but the checkup came back OK. now we know we should have pushed for an MRI or a contrasting CT scan.

amazing brain tumor surgery

2007-08-19T17:31:00.001-07:00

Surgery with a smile: wide-awake brain surgery

If he's awake and I keep taking tumor out and he keeps moving and he's fine, I can keep pushing the resection," Dr. Mintz explained before the surgery. The goal: excise more than 90 percent of Mr. Dubovich's cancer, called a glioblastoma, because studies indicate that can lengthen survival time.

"We know we can't remove the entire tumor," the surgeon said. "At some point, we have to stop because the tumor is intermingled with normal brain matter."

Imagine the brain is the white paint in a bucket, and the tumor is a glob of red paint dropped into it, Dr. Mintz said. There are very red areas that could be scooped out, but then some pinky-white parts, whitey-pink parts and then white.

"As you get into that whitey-pink area, you're taking more brain than tumor," he said, and that could unacceptably impair the patient's function.

Complete List Of Brain Tumor Symtoms

2007-08-16T19:16:00.001-07:00

Complete List Of Brain Tumor Symptoms

The most complete list of brain tumor symptoms that I could find is listed below.

I must stress again that our experience most of these were not present.

*

Headache -- a persistent headache that is new for the person, worse on awakening
Vomiting -- possibly accompanied by nausea; more severe in the morning
Personality and behavior changes
Emotional instability, rapid emotional changes
Loss of memory, impaired judgment
Seizures that are new for the person
Reduced alertness
Double vision, decreased vision
Hearing loss
Decreased sensation of a body area
Weakness of a body area
Speech difficulties
Decreased coordination, clumsiness, falls
Fever (sometimes)
Weakness, lethargy
General ill feeling
Positive Babinski's reflex
Decerebrate posture
Decorticate posture

Additional symptoms that may be associated with primary brain tumors:

*

Tongue problems
Swallowing difficulty
Impaired sense of smell
Obesity
Uncontrollable movement
Dysfunctional movement
Absent menstruation
Hiccups
Hand tremor
Facial paralysis
Eye abnormalities
pupils different sizes
uncontrollable movements
eyelid drooping
Confusion
Breathing, absent temporarily
Unusual or strange behavior

This all came from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007222.htm

Warning About Brain Tumor Symptoms

2007-08-16T19:15:00.001-07:00

There is one thing that I MUST say.

Not all the symptoms will be present, it may only be very few symptoms of the Brain Tumor that are present. You MUST be aware of this. My Dad did not ever ever have a headache. Even though he has a Brain Tumor the size of a golf ball in his head.

Never did he have a headache, or nausea or anything like that.

I always found this surprising, but that is what happened.

So when on the lookout for a Brain Tumor, or when you think someone has the Symptoms of a Brain Tumor, just remember not all of the symptoms will be displayed.

Brain Tumor Symptoms - Area of the Brain

2007-08-16T19:11:00.002-07:00

I didn't know that until recently, but it makes perfect sense. My Dad's tumor is right down in the middle of the brain, just near where his optic nerves join on. Hence we now guess why his vision was effected. It also effects his balance and some of the nervous responses.

What can you expect with a brain tumor down there in that part of the brain. Well sight affected, balance affected, muscular movement affected. The brain tumor my Dad has must be on the left hand side as his entire left hand side is affected. Left arm, left leg, left eye etc. He has huge trouble looking left and the peripheral vision on the left hand side is now almost non-existent.

Enough of me rabbiting on, the following are the best guesses I could find about what affect different the location of the brain tumor has on the symptoms of the patient.

*

Frontal lobe tumors - Changes in personality and intellect. Un-coordinated walking or weakness of one side of the body. Loss of smell, occasional speech difficulties.

*

Parietal lobe - Difficulty in speaking or understanding words. Problems with writing or reading. Difficulty in co-ordinating certain movements. Difficulty finding your way around. Difficulty with numbers (doing simple calculations). Numbness or weakness on one side of the body.
*

Occipital lobe - Loss of vision on one side. The person may not notice this at first and it may sometimes be discovered during routine eye tests.
*

Temporal lobe - Fits may cause strange sensations: a feeling of fear or intense familiarity (dé jà vu), strange smells or blackouts. Speech difficulties and memory problems.
*

Cerebellum - Lack of co-ordination which affects walking and speech (dysarthria), unsteadiness, flickering involuntary movement of the eyes (nystagmus). Vomiting and neck stiffness.
*

Brain stem - Unsteadiness and an un-coordinated walk. Facial weakness, a one-sided smile or drooping eyelid. Double vision. Rarely, vomiting or headache just after waking; difficulty in speaking and swallowing. Symptoms may appear gradually.

This came from http://www.cancerbackup.org.uk/Cancertype/Brain/Causesdiagnosis/Symptoms

The image also came from them.

Maths A Brain Tumor Symptom?

2007-08-16T19:11:00.001-07:00

My Dad really lost his maths ability.

That sounds a bit odd I know, but I will give you an example. One day he was putting some shade cloth over a pergola, this was about 18 months before we knew about the tumor. The pergola was 3m by 5m in rectangular area, and he could not figure out how much shade cloth he needed.

Not just a minor I'm having a bit of trouble, but a major it took 3 days for him to figure that out. This is from a person that worked on a farm all his life and could easily do this. He also knew he should be able to figure it out. But he just couldn't do it.

This was also the case with another person that I spoke to about their brain tumor, they had simple maths problems they could not figure out, even though they were an electrical engineer. The issue was not the calculation, but how to do it, the problem solving.

Live Webcast: Cancer Fighting Technology for Brain Tumors

2007-08-15T17:52:00.001-07:00

bit of an ad I know but found it interesting

Brain Tumors

2007-08-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

Want to know what brain tumor symptoms to watch out for?

I wish I knew years ago, see my Dad has a brain tumor. And yes it is very serious, and yes he is undergoing treatment for his brain tumor. No he hasn't recovered yet, and we are in the middle of a scary time at present. Brain Tumors are really very scary things.

However I digress, my dad's brain tumor symptoms were

*

depth perception ( a bit scary when he was driving)
*

shaking of the left hand
*

an inability to process simple maths problems****
*

dragging of the left leg
*

a problem with his left eye, focus and peripheral vision
*

and in the end, no balance.

I high lighted the maths problems, as I have heard of several other people that also had brain tumors and had issues with simple problem solving. More on that later.

One thing that I really want to point out is that nutrition plays a very important role in brain tumor fighting. No matter what treatment you have, kemo, radium. All these are helped by the best possible nutrition. Fighting a Brain Tumor will take it's toll on your body.

I found these two books on Cancer Fighting Via natural means extremely helpful. Please take time to check them out.

Natural Cancer Treatment

Better Nutrition for Victory Over Cancer

So remember when looking out for Brain Tumor Symptoms not all symptoms will be present.

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