Posts by Justin Ortiz

I’m looking for an Intel-based gaming rig—tower only, no peripherals needed. My budget is $2000. Thanks.

mistytiger11 said:I realize this thread title sounds pretty ridiculous—maybe even a bit nonsensical—but for me, the situation is incredibly serious.

I'm 34 years old, and I was recently diagnosed with a total blockage of the middle cerebral artery behind my left eye. (I’ll be writing part of this in English since all my medical reports are in English—I’m currently stuck abroad and don't even know the specific American medical terminology for some of these things unless I just translate them directly).

From what I can gather, there’s a silver lining here: the blockage developed gradually over a certain period rather than happening overnight. Because of that, the collateral vessels managed to step up and take over the workload of the main artery—otherwise, I would have suffered a full-blown stroke.

Right now, I'm on 100mg of aspirin daily, and honestly, I'm terrified... I'm just waiting for a battery of diagnostic tests—most of which are completely foreign to me—to figure out the what, the how, and the why of this whole mess.

So, here I am. I have health insurance, BUT the competence of the doctors here is highly questionable at best.
It is very likely that I will decide to move my treatment back to the States to see specialists privately, at my own expense. That's why I'm asking if anyone knows about potential procedures for this specific diagnosis and, more importantly, what they might cost.

Thanks.

Sent you a DM.

Keith Martinez77 said:Greetings, everyone. If there’s already an existing thread covering this topic, please feel free to redirect me to it—I’d appreciate it. Much obliged. 🙂

Here’s the issue at hand. Has anyone here dealt with a loss of sensation before?

I’m going to lay out two situations involving my own family—if anyone here can offer some perspective or even just a comment, I’d appreciate it.

My mother has lost her sense of smell and taste. Completely. Just gone. 😢

Look, she can’t distinguish the smell of a Sunday roast from—pardon my French—something much more unpleasant like sewage. I’m using an extreme example here just to make sure you grasp the gravity of the situation. The point is, she simply cannot smell anything. Not the scent of flowers, not fish, not a steak, not even expensive perfume. Nothing. Neither pleasant nor foul—just total sensory silence. Furthermore, her sense of taste is gone too. She could eat just about anything and have no idea what it actually is. If you served her fish but told her it was beef—and since she can't see exactly what's on the plate—she would genuinely believe she was eating meat. This hasn't been a sudden thing; it's been going on for quite some time. She saw an ENT specialist, who explained that some kind of virus essentially wiped out those senses. Before this happened, she had caught a viral infection—nothing particularly severe, mind you—but once she recovered, her ability to smell and taste vanished entirely. Has anyone else dealt with something like this?

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Then there’s my own situation—though, admittedly, far less dire than my mother's. I’ve had this bizarre experience three separate times in my life where I completely lost all sense of touch, if only temporarily. It’s a strange thing—you touch your own skin and feel absolutely nothing. You could plunge your hand into scalding hot water and wouldn't notice a difference until you switched to ice water. If I lift a twenty-pound weight, it feels no different than lifting a handful of feathers. Wood, metal, plastic—it’s all the same textureless void. If I were blindfolded, I wouldn't be able to distinguish one object from another. It’s happened three times now, and each episode lasts about a week before the sensation gradually trickles back. I just came out of the most recent bout. I’m fine now, but five or six days ago, I couldn't even feel the keys under my fingers while typing. It is a deeply unsettling sensation. Has anyone else dealt with this? Why would my tactile perception just... vanish like that? I haven't mentioned it to my doctor yet. Should I? 🤷

I have two questions:

Is there any actual chance my mother might regain her sense of smell and taste?

Is there any real risk that I'll end up losing my sense of touch permanently—considering I’ve already dealt with this temporary loss three times now?

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Thanks to everyone for the input. 🙂

As far as I understand, the cranial nerves are the primary drivers behind our sense of smell and taste. My own situation involves a brain tumor wrapped around the twelfth cranial nerve—the hypoglossal nerve—which, among other things, manages swallowing. I dealt with significant issues getting food down before my surgery, and even now, those difficulties haven't entirely vanished. To be more precise, smell is governed by the first cranial nerve, the olfactory nerve, while taste is handled by the ninth, or glossopharyngeal nerve, which innervates the posterior third of the tongue. Given that, there could be some underlying pathology or perhaps a tumor at play here. Is she suffering from headaches as well?

I can't speak to the sensory side of things—that's out of my wheelhouse—but usually, these kinds of issues stem from neurological pathologies. We’re talking anything from relatively straightforward nerve compressions to more serious conditions like multiple sclerosis.

What exactly does a diagnosis of "benign pontocerebellar angle tumor causing brainstem compression" actually mean?
Thanks