Choosing a Cerebrospinal Fluid Leak Procedure - Patti's Story

The surgery that I had involved harvesting fat from my leg and putting it in my head, right here in front of the brain, to keep the fluid from leaking. That’s what solved the leak. That’s the easiest way to explain it.

After I had the surgery they monitored me for the pressure in my head because your brain swells and because you have encephalitis after this surgery or during the symptoms before, which is a lot of liquid, fluid and sometimes body can handle that, other times it can’t and they install a shunt in your head and that’s what they did to me.

They put a shunt here and it has tubing that runs all the way down and empties into an area in my stomach. It empties the fluid out so that I won’t have that symptom again. It keeps things in check because when the pressure builds up, that’s when you can get a leak or you can get the leak and then the pressure.