's mom's trip to Neurologist

February 1, 2006

(I posted this as a reply to a posted message yesterday - and I see

some of my posts were finally displayed - but not all that I did - so

just posting again to allow you all to hear what happened... This is

the 3rd one = starting a new post this time = I know 3-4 of my posts

finally went through all at the same time, but don't know which of

them worked, which of them didn't. Note to self = this one is a NEW

post. I'm dying to let you all know what happened...)

In a nutshell - the neurologist diagnosed Cerebral Vasculitis vs.

Lewy Body Dementia, Depression, and Akathisia. So as you recall her

last diagnosis was Vascular Dementia or Binswenger's Disease - so now

it's the above. He said that I did a great job with my research for

LBD (thanks to you all). He hadn't known about my mother's visual

hallucinations - so now that he knows this he thinks the LBD is quite

possible.

He wants to do a Brain Biopsy - b/c he suspects the possibility of

His concern is the " rapidly prominent white matter " " don't know what

the white matter is " and " what/why is there blood on the scan " (she

also had a small amount of brain hemorrage) If it was Cerebral

Vasculitis there's a possibility it can be treated. Treat the

inflamation. Mom would be sedated and would stay overnight or for 2

days in the hospital. Make sure the brain biopsy includes the white

matter.

He did go ahead and prescribe some meds - Celexa (10 mg daily for one

week, then 20 mg daily); Requip (0.25 mg tid (titrates up over one

week) then 0.5 mg tid; and Memantine (5 mg daily, 1-10 mg daily over

4 weeks)

I asked him if my mother possibly suffered from NMS from the

Resperidone. It didn't brush that off - that it was possible.

It's definitely not alzheimers though - he's 90% sure it's not AD.

And that spinal tap wasn't a waste b/c he was able to determine that

there were no abnormalities in the spinal tap.

He confirmed that my mother is still the medical mystery (not in

those words) - that he and his colleagues are stumped. That's why he

wants to do this brain biopsy. We'll see. Discussed with the family -

and we'll move ahead with the brain biopsy... I figured that I'd

feel more guilty if it was a treatable disease and we didn't do

something, than if something should happen and we find out it wasn't.

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