Diamox (Acetazolamide) belongs to a group of medicines called carbonic anhydrase inhibitors.

It basically acts as cerebral vasodilator - dilating the blood vessels in the brain - except it won't dilate dead or diseased blood vessels. Dunno if any of you have had a SPECT scan with or without Diamox, but i had another one today.... and noticed something interesting... Once the diamox started to hit in, the wooshing in my ears COMPLETELY stopped..... which freaked me out a bit as it's a LONG time since there's been silence there.. Anyway i just wanted to know if anyone has any thoughts on this..
Now i am going to go and throw up.

Hi Emily,

My Dad is Head of the Nuclear Medicine department at the local hospital back at home. I'm going to ask him about diamox - that stuff sounds a bit clever! He doesn't do brain scans but might know about diamox especially if they can use it for scans of other organs or bone scans which he does do.

I've had a SPECT scan done but not recently. I remember having an injection but assumed it was similar to the stuff they use in other perfusion scans like CTs and MRAs. I didn't know about diamox - I wonder how it can differentiate between good vessels and bad ones.

I avoid caffeine because I thought that caffeine dilates blood vessels and I thought that dilating  our already narrowed and fragile MM vessels is not good. That said, I know that some people have been put on vasodilators. I don't get it... that said, I still don't get a lot of things about MM!

Hope the whooshing sounds ease soon. I have that but only really notice it when I'm lying down or when I can feel my heart rate rise too quickly for example from getting up too fast or being sick. By the way, I hope you're feeling better - what was it that made you sick?

Best wishes,

Roz

Mandy doesn't have wooshing in her ears but just to let people know of her experience since its related she got a real fine bad rash all over her body from the diamox it itches galore drove her crazy  :(when she just went in Dec. for her testing.
                                       Nancy

yeah i've since decided that i am downright refusing Diamox if they ever suggest it again. Sure it seems like a clever thing to do: the purpose is to see which parts (and how much) of the brain has diseased (ie. moyamoya) vessels.... but damn it makes you sick..

decided to look it up on the net and found that all my side-effects were quite "normal" (nice of them to tell me what might happen after i left hospital!!)
- tingling in the extremities (to the point of agony)
- fatigue/drowsiness
- nausea
- headaches
- mood changes (happy -> cynical -> bawling)
- hyperventilation (when taken with aspirin - awesome for an mm patient, especially one caning it home on her pushbike!!)
- severe risk of bone-softening when taken with Dilantin (also awesome)

i've had one done before and it didn't knock me around this much. was kinda cool to not hear the wooshing sound but also weird as.... makes me realise how damn long it's been a constant presence in my life!- which in turn makes me grateful that i didn't experience and nasty symptoms earlier as i've had some fairly wild times in the past!

but yeah basically my conclusion is i have huge respect for cancer patients, brain surgery is a piece of cake.

Roz,


Quote:

I avoid caffeine because I thought that caffeine dilates blood vessels and I thought that dilating  our already narrowed and fragile MM vessels is not good

Please do let us know what your dad says.  I never had a SPECT yet, but what I wanted to comment on was your comment about caffeine.  I just started drinking coffee again, but I'm definitely going to put a stop to that immediately after reading that it may not be good for our blood vessels.  My question is, does this also pertain to Coca~Cola, Pepsi or other products with caffeine?  [smiley=huh.gif]  Please let me know..

Thanks,
Shan

I have just spoken to my Dad. He doesn't use Diamox with any of his scans but as said before, he doesn't do brain scans.

Going back to the caffeine issue, I think I got slightly confused. I think caffeine constricts rather than dilates the arteries of the brain. I've done a search on the web and still can't really figure it out. Either way, whether caffeine constricts or dilates our arteries in the brain, I'm going to avoid it. That said, I still eat chocolate and even decaff tea (which I do drink) can contain a bit of caffeine. I'm sorry for any confusion caused.

um yeah as far as i know caffeine constricts blood vessels.... which is worse.. because that just reduces the blood flow in general around the brain. i'm pretty sure Moyamoya affected vessels just wont dilate at all, ao a dilator isn't much of a problem...

that said i don't think the amount of caffeine in coffee (in fact i know) is enough to constrict blood vessels. you need to have a serious overdose... (this is why it's banned from olympic sports - an overdose of caffeine -> constricting the blood vessels, gives you a quick "high" and so you feel like you can do more -> and often do!)

i'm actually in the middle of a coffee now...... i did stop cold turkey before my last operation, but i've been too active this time and a bit more tired.... should stop now...
that said i have a constant reminder on my hand saying "stop drinking"... grr alcohol that is.... really not clever stuff

Thank you for coffee information, I'm addict big time w/ coffee & tea :), I just have to stop cold tuckey so I can hang on and play a waiting game. ;;D

I'm a big believer in moderation!  Regarding the caffeine - I drank a lot more coffee/caffeine pre-surgery than I do post-surgery.  My doc never put me on any restrictions in terms of food, but I definitely put the restriction on myself to cut back.  I went to having a medium sized latte every morning (yes, I was addicted to Starbucks!) to just a cup of coffee in the morning.  I really don't drink soda, but when I do, I try to drink caffeine free.  Just my  [smiley=twocents.gif].

-Shari