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Have you had a brain scan? I don't want to scare you but that sounds like it may be a tumor. Or at least I know two people who had brain tumors that had simil
by jedberg 4y ago
Have you had a brain scan? I don't want to scare you but that sounds like it may be a tumor. Or at least I know two people who had brain tumors that had similar symptoms.
- jason_slack 4y agoActually, I do feel a slight lump (about the size of a nickel) above my right ear and it changes in size, sensitivity, etc. My PCP wrote it off, but sometimes it feels very warm too.
- jedberg 4y agoPush on them harder for a head MRI. Point out that you have the lump and that you can't find other causes. Keep pushing. Eventually they will get tired of you asking. Good luck!
- postalrat 4y agoMaybe a pilar cyst? Does it move around at all or is it attached to bone?
- jason_slack 4y agoIt stays in the same location, I believe it is attached because I can't really move it, but it does seem to change size, etc.
- timr 4y agoIf you can feel it on the outside of your head, it's not a brain tumor. Jedberg is freaking you out.
- jason_slack 4y agoIt seems to be between my skull and my skin. I should mention that I have had some auditory hallucinations within the last few weeks.
- timr 4y agoThere are tons of reasons that lumps happen under the skin. If your doctor has looked at it and concluded it's not serious, then you should take their word for it. It's not an area where you expect catastrophic medical misjudgment. FWIW, this entire thread is really something you should bring up with your doctor(s), and not rely on people on the internet for anything more than empathy.
- jedberg 4y agoI was trying my best not to freak them out, given how rare brain tumors are. I just wanted to make sure they were considering it.
- jason_slack 4y agoyou are fine. I am not freaked out by your thoughts. I truly appreciate you replied at all.
- 300bps 4y agoJust as a counterpoint - I have several lumps in my neck and head area that have all been fully checked out. One is a benign lymph node in my neck. The other is a very hard fixed structure to the front of my left ear. Both have been there for decades. CT scan and MRI show it's all benign. Nobody can diagnose you with a brain tumor over the Internet and primary brain tumors are in fact rare - about 1.3% of all cancers.
- sillysaurusx 4y agoOP, please take jedberg's advice. It may seem like "Well, if it could be a tumor, why wouldn't the specialists have mentioned that possibility?" but it turns out that doctors often overlook corner cases. It was surprising.
- yamtaddle 4y agoHell, it's not even always corner cases they overlook. There's stigma about self-diagnosing, but if you've got a little sense it's a very good idea to do so. You may well google your exact signs, symptoms, and circumstances and find the doctor's (multiple doctors, even!) failed to rule out the #1 most likely cause, let alone more obscure possibilities.
- jason_slack 4y agoAgreed. One member of my family was "misdiagnosed" and they didn't catch the cancer until it was Stage 4. My beloved grandfather died within months of the diagnosis once it was finally made. He was my "person".
- swamp40 4y agoA blood clot creating a small stroke could also do similar damage to specific parts of your brain. I suspect they happen a lot and never get diagnosed. Like your peripheral vision going, it's hard to notice what just is no longer there one day. The good news is, the brain can remap and relearn.
- jason_slack 4y agointeresting, there was a day where I was mixing words, slurring speech, etc. My Dr. said it was a reaction to medication and the medication was changed. But I have been off all meds since July.
- rmetzler 4y agoMy dad used to work with all kinds of people who had brain damage through strokes and accidents. I earned my first money programming software to help these people to improve their cognitive abilities like calculating and reading. The best reading training was a kind of side scroller which scrolled a text from right to left. You could adjust speed, font, fontsize and the actual text. This was in the 90s, so I don’t know if there is a program like this now, but it should be easy to build something with JavaScript in the browser.
- xupybd 4y agoSlurring speech, mixing words and characters jumping around when you're reading. Does it also feel like you get into reading mechanically where you read each word but don't actually connect the words into sentences? This happens to me a lot. It's stress related. If I'm really under pressure or burnt out I put 110% effort in and get stuck. That builds impatience with myself and that burns me out even more. I go through periods when I can't learn a thing I'm just too wired on stress hormones. It normally takes a few months of doing mindless things to come back to normal. Physical work or basic repetitive admin tasks seem to be the best for clearing the burn out. Anything that doesn't require mental clarity or learning but still provides a sense of achievement. I went from a period where I seriously struggled to learn things like one new git command to picking up functional programming in F# with ease.
- altgeek 4y ago+1 to this. Decades ago, my mother complained that her vision was "dim" in one eye. It did turn out to be very bad, terminal news thereafter.