My daughter has had a shunt since she was 14months old. the shunt was put in when her ventricles were "moderately" enlarged, and her icp was high. she had 1 shunt revision, but otherwise has had great success with her shunt, until just this past week, needed to have a shunt revision due to an intermittent shunt malfunction. her ns put in a medtronic strata pressure regulated shunt, but is now concerned about the size of her ventricles. a ct scan showed her ventricles to be be very small.the ns mentioned this slit ventricle syndrome and said she would be keeping very close tabs on her symptoms.i'm looking for anyone else having been diagnosed with slit ventricle syndrome-what can i expect as far as problems and shunt revisions?
Gabriel's Life » Living with Hydrocephalus - Children
slit ventricle sydrome
(3 posts)
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Posted 2 months ago #
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Hi,
My son who is almost 6 has a Medtronic Strata valve which he has had since 2007. It's great because the level of drainage can be altered easily without surgery. His has been adjusted probably 7 or 8 times in the past two years - I think he's had all five settings on the valve.
He has this valve inserted because of slit ventricle syndrome - high ICP and associated symptoms but with small ventricles and a functioning shunt. He had had two previous revisions because of blockage.
However I have to say we have spent a lot of time back and forth to the hospital in the past two and a half years. He has had ICP monitoring done about 5 time since 2007. He suffers from 2-3 month periods of headaches/ fatigue and nausea which then seem to slowly resolve leaving him symptom free for between 2 and 4 months at a stretch. ICP monitoring has revealed normal, low and high ICP on different occasions. His ns is not sure whether the symtoms are directly shunt related or perhaps more a side effect of the hydrocephalus itself. He was admitted last week following a particularly bad run of fatigue and vomiting with a few bad headaches. However he felt better on the day and begged not to have another operation, so the surgeon let us go and will re-admit him for ICP monitoring next time his symptoms are bad enough to worry us. We think his shunt may be intermittently blocking.Posted 1 month ago # -
hi bluekangaroo333-i'm sorry that your son has been thru so much with his hydrocephalus. so far with this new shunt that they just put in, my daughter hasn't experienced any problems. i am however, finding that this whole "slit-ventricle syndrome" seems to be very complicated when it comes to diagnosing and treating shunt malfunctions. there are constantly new questions that i am searching for answers. my biggest question at this point is - are children with slit ventricle syndrome more likely to have more shunt malfuntions verses children without slit ventricle syndrome, and what are some long term problems she will be faced with?
Posted 1 month ago #
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