My Experience with Multiple Shunt Revisions for Hydrocephalus

I'm wanting to share my experience with my many shunt revisions due to hydrocephalus. I am 41 years old, and have had a shunt in place since birth. I lived with it without any problems until 2015. I had to have a hernia repair March 2015, and not even 2 weeks later, ended up in the ER with my first of almost 30 shunt revisions that were done between 2015 and 2017. They tried so many different shunts, ventroperitoneal, ventroperitoneal, and ventriculopleural. They found me so many times obtunded unconscious in bed. And many times wandering the streets unaware of who I was. My neurosurgeon met with his entire team several times, they couldn't explain why they kept failing. I'm going on over 5 years now since my last revision. I still suffer from headaches, and some memory issues. I hate not knowing at what point I should go to the ER due to headaches. I don't want to seem like a hypochondriac.