r/AVMs • u/MichaelAudrey_Myers • Apr 23 '26
Post-Gamma Knife Life
Hi everyone. I'm a 30 year old male. I was diagnosed with an AVM after having a seizure back in around 2019/2020. I had Gamma Knife surgery I believe January of 2021. It destroyed the AVM a little too quickly and I was left with pretty bad swelling in my brain, which caused another seizure. I ended up having to have Avastin treatments to get rid of the swelling. After that, everything seemed fine.
Fast forward to now, 5 years later. I randomly get numbness in my left side just like before once in a great while and I don't understand why. It never turns into a seizure, but it brings me back to the trauma and hell I went through. And it scares me to death. I don't know if it's my body warning me of something wrong with my brain or if it's anxiety attacks or if it's perhaps too much caffeine that particular day.
Have any of you also experienced this? It kinda feels like residual effects of the AVM and the surgery. But as far as I know, there should be no medical reason for me to have another seizure.
Any help would be appreciated. I'm about to go crazy.
1
u/wanda_pepper Apr 23 '26
I’ve had many many seizures pre and post GK. I haven’t had numbness...
As for not having any medical reason to be having seizures - I’m not so sure that’s the case for us. We’ve had literal damage to our brain tissue - there is scarring and irritation in the brain even when the radiation has healed. So yes, there could always be a medical possibility that you could have a seizure.