Question: My wife started over 10 years ago with a dx of pseudo tumor cerebra after 5 years of elevated bp and tachycardia to around 130/minute.It took the docs 5years to finally tap her and get pressures of 320mm.She has had 4 shunt replacements and has programmable shunt by Duke nuerosurgery.Here is the thing.I am a nurse anesthetist and my wife an R.N.She was perfectly healthy and worked out everyday and we traveled out of the country to the Carribean 3 times at about the time she became sick.She also went into surgical menopause at the same time as this all occurred,literally within a 3-5 month period.She has had continuous unrelenting headaches this entire time despite the shunt,controlling her bp and placing her on beta blockers.They have tried numerous med combos to improve her headaches and we have been to John-Hopkins and she has seen 7 different neurologists.She is on acetazolamide for the csf with the shunt and the last pressure from tap was 240mm which the neurosurgeon,Dr XXXXXXX Grossi was good with.During this entire 10 year plus period and despite her treatments,she has had severe nausea and vomiting with nausea everyday and also severe bouts of diarrhea that have put her in the Raliegh-Duke ICU and admitted to our hospital here for the same thing.She has been wheezing,severe peripheral edema,IgE 163.Again all of this has been a continuous process for a relatively woman who this started in her late 30s and she was stunning and the most healthy woman you would meet.Now I can hardly recognize her.At the time,she weighed 140,now200 lbs and had never carried this weight,only during pregnancy and lost the weight immediately after delivery.She and I have been in the woods,yes she has had tick bite and we had her treated with Doxy and my biggest wonder is could this be a parasitic infection that noone has really looked at which is affecting her bowels and lungs or what thoughts could you think of.Last year,my wife had a capsulectomy from breast explant and her tissue was full of infection.This surgery was done in XXXXXXX We had her implants removed for fear they might have caused her problem.I realize that this is a very complex question but my wife is now basically been in bed with ice packs to her head 24 hours a day,she was taken out of work permanently and is now totally disabled.I feel that something is being missed and noone is really looking.I realize that pseudotumor cerebra can be triggered by surgical menopause and her being white female in her 30 but I honestly feel she has not been dx correctly.Please,I have read on everything and have 35 years in the medical profession.My wife has been to everyone including holistic medicines just to see if there is something weird.I feel that this started when we were on a cruise and my wife developed the flu on the way to our ship.It was later on when we went to Cozumel that she was really starting to have the headaches and she gradually went downhill from there.She has been on Ivermectin for maybe 2-3 months without any real improvement.There is so much more but this is the best of it .Any ideas.The IgE is a new finding within this month and I am taking my wife to Duke this month to see a pulmonologist/allergist.please forgive the length.