Diagnosed with a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst in my brain

I just had surgery to remove an arachnoid cyst into left temporal fossa. It was a little bigger than a golf ball the pain has finally went away after headaches for 6 months. Life is all better my surgeon was very good and did a great job.

I was diagnosed with an Arachnoid Brain Cyst in 2007. My cyst is the size of my fist, wraps around the base of my brain stem and is attached to it. I went for three years with a Neurologist (not a brain surgeon) telling me that my vertigo, migraines and visual disturbances have nothing to do with the cyst despite the fact that the cyst was the biggest she had ever seen. I finally said no! someone is wrong here. I went to see Dr. Michael Liu, a neurosurgeon in Salem Oregon, he said she is dead wrong, he could tell by looking at the cyst it was highly pressurized and needed to be drain or partially resected, the following week, I had brain surgery, woke up and felt like a different person, the pressure in my face, the visual stuff had largely subsided. The cyst still remains and I do have a severe case of Occipital Neuralgia (super horrible superficial migraines), that is caused from cutting directly through nerves to access the cyst to be able to drain it. Be careful is all I am saying, these cysts can be fatal in some circumstances. The Neurosurgeon that did my surgery said over time my cyst would have likely wrapped the remaining 10% of the way around my brain stem cutting off critical communication and spinal fluid. Sorry long winded but I am passionate about looking out for ones self.

hi im 23 and I have the same issue.. my dr found my cyst after I started displaying some rather odd symptoms and his intial thought was to check if I had a tumor... then we find this... I have also been diagnosed with focal epilepsy and on medication.. however my surgeon doesn't want to consider the possibility that they are in fact related.. which I thought was crazy since after explaining my symptoms and being examined by my neurologist his first thought was that I had a brain tumor... (ugh) anyway my best advise would be go get a second opinion.. because more likely than not I would assume ur son was showing some signs of something being wrong to even scan in the first place... I don't believe in incidental findings... I believe they found it bc that is the issue at hand. best of luck god bless!

hi sorry, just saw this post, i have what drs called Dandy Walker Syndrome,, was diagnosed when i was almost 1 years old , not sure this is what u have but the cyst was on the 4th ventricle and i have trouble with hands more than legs its like they are on 2 different planets they don' t like to work together in sync i have 2 shunts that drain into the cavity under my lung, i am now 40 and live somewhat independently, have issues with my processing and working memory which make it hard to multi task

Hey I'm 29 and just got diagnosed with this. I've had migraines for a very long time feels like my head wants to explode. I have some dysfunction of eye nerve. What's the life expectancy? This stuff is pretty scary

I have an arachnoid cyst in the posterior fossa fourth ventricle that measures a little over an inch. I am prone to headaches n I have balance issues. I also get massive throbbing in the back of my head that travels forward when i exert like coughing hard, a big sneeze or laugh which puts pressure on my brain stem. I've had 3 MRIs n it doesn't seem to be growing. Met with neurosurgeon twice and he said the risk of the surgery doesn't out weigh the symptoms at this point and that i can just live with it unless symptoms get too much to bear. He said it's unlikely that they'll get worse. He said I was most likely born with the cyst.

Hi Maria. Do arachnoid cysts in the posterior fossa always show up on non-contrast CT scans? They found one on my MRI 13 years ago about the size of a chickpea. Now, because of more severe neurological symptoms, including ataxia and weakness in the legs, and some arm hand weakness, in addition to dizziness with headaches and cognitive issues, I will have an MRI in a couple of weeks. I also have a mild head injury (concussion) two years ago,; hence the CT scan. I'm surprised it went unaccounted for in the CT scan in 2013, unless they do not always show up? Thank you.

I am 61 years old. a year and half ago, I suffered from a continuous migrane headache. I had an MRI done which showed a posterior fossa arachnoid cyst about 2" x 2 1/2" x 1 1/2". I have seen 2 neurolgist, a neurosurgion, my sleep doctor and pain specialist. I have been told that about 1.6% of the population have brain cyst and of those, only about 1" cause any real problems. As for me, I was told I born with it. the doc knew that because my skull isn't fully formed in the back of my head. the cyst pushes to the outer part of my skull. I don't have the inner bone of the skull just where the cyst is. this means that the cyst was there prior to my skull being formed in the womb. the neurosurgion explained in detail how he would do the surgery, then he said, you will still have the headaches. this cyst has nothing to do with your headaches. We didn't do the surgery. I went to the pain center and had a nerve block in the head. this helped the headaches a lot. I had another MRI done of the neck and found that I have bulging disc that is pinching the occipital nerve over the top of the left side of my head. It's been a year now and my treatment for the pinched nerve is going well. the cyst was never an issue. At least now I know it's there.

Hello I am having same problem I hope you got better I am worried about mine
is t really dangerous and whats the tretemet for this