At the time of this ‘going to press’ (ie 7th August), my own shunt has decided to play up so tomorrow I am going to hospital in London to see my surgeon. I am keeping my fingers crossed for no more surgery – but I think I already know what the outcome is going to be! My apologies for not having updated this blog for so long and for probably not being able to update it for a while after today. I hope to resume to normal service shortly!
After having yet another discussion with a fellow shuntee about the odd things we can feel/hear with our shunts, I thought it might help to write about them here, in case newly-shunted people are worried about what they might be experiencing. I am currently on my third shunt in the thirteen years since my diagnosis and I have had two different types; the Codman Programmable and now a Miethke ProGAV. Both of them have presented different sensations and sounds once implanted. Some are quite funny, some are a little unsettling at first but all are easier to deal with once you understand what is causing them.
So what does a shunt look like?
It looks like this:
This is a basic model; the valve part (lumpy part) will probably look different depending on what kind of model you have. (picture courtesy of neuroanimations.com).