Pineal Cyst: What symptoms led to your diagnosis?

Posted by Jeep @jeep, Aug 18, 2011

Seems that we've found that I Have a Pineal Cyst. It was discovered while investigating tinitis and vertigo issues. Nurosurgeon says it's not the cause of my symptoms. Other discussions I've read show many folks with PC having similar symptoms and similar conclusions by thier neurologist. Symptoms include visual disturbances (eye strain), diziness, fatigue, constant tinitis- often pulsatile, constant low-grade headache. The only relief is occassional doses of Lorazapam.

Anybody have any insight?

Thanks

Jeep

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Brain Tumor Support Group.

@uldiver

I don’t think my last post I tried went through so I’ll try again. As stated above/below or however it displays, make sure Vestibular and spinal and all other causes of your symptoms have been ruled out. If you are 100% completely healthy and have a pineal cyst >1.4 cm(?) it can cause symptoms, but usually has to be fairly large to be the root cause. The treatment is brain surgery and that causes a traumatic brain injury. So if everything has been ruled out and have tried all forms of conservative treatment (PT, acupuncture, diet, normalizing deficiencies (vit D, B and magnesium to name a few that can cause symptoms), exercise (directed by an MD or PT (for whatever other probs you have) and the other forms of calming the nervous system down of decreasing stress, depression and anxiety by doing mindfulness regularly, meditation regularly, possibly tai chi or yoga if able and getting good at breathing exercises and of course regulating sleep as the main function of the pineal gland is circadian rhythm and medicines to address the dysfunctions, then at that point, surgery may be right for you.
For the most part they are right in that it doesn’t usually cause these symptoms, but if you get to Paranaud syndrome then at that point I believe they’d consider surgery. Otherwise, the after effects of brain surgery are all the same symptoms. Just education is all I’m giving. It’s very scary to have these symptoms and in fortunately there are an infinite number of causes of these symptoms and so many diagnoses to rule out (some with treatment and cures and unfortunately, some like all of mine that don’t have treatment and cures).
Hope that helps. I think the doctors name is ‘king’ or something like that. I was on the pineal cyst FB support group briefly and they mentioned it. The surgery was successful for those who had 0 other health issues and the cyst was the only cause of the symptoms.

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Hello there, very interesting reading these comments. I have had mild tinnitus for a long time. I also have essential thrombocythemia and take hydroxyurea for this condition. I have been on hydroxyurea for about two years. My tinnitus has gotten much worse in the past six months. My doctor has ordered a carotid artery scan, and a brain MRI. I have never heard of a pineal cyst and I am now wondering if this is what is causing my worsening tinnitus. Thanks for sharing this information and I will post the results of my test.

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I have a pineocytoma, so a pineal tumor instead of a cyst. I was experiencing issues with eye movement and inflammation of the muscle around the eye. In addition to vision issues. I too was told that my eye issues were unrelated. I also have arthritis, which is more than likely the cause of the inflammation. But not 100% sure. Thus far no other symptoms like tinitus. All I was given for the eye issue was prednisone, which helped.

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