Can hydrocephalus causes a sleep disorder?

Hi there, I have a college student who been dealing recent hydrocephalus due to blockage in the ventricle aqueduct. He contracted meningitis while in surgery. He also have had several surgeries to place a shunt and then to repair a few times. He now has double vision and can sleep up to 20 hours a day. Is there any correlation with hydrocephalus and sleep disorder? Just curious if anyone been through this. Thanks!

Hi Angcor,
Is this your child? So sorry for this person's difficulties no matter...

This is both a medical question and a speculative one too.

But information about such matters can be found all over the internet. Try the mayo Clinic site.

Looking at it logically, the increased pressure in the brain can cause trauma to the base of the brain where sleep and other core activities are controlled.
So it would be folly to say no.

But, any trauma to the brain can always heal. The nervous system is just a little slower to do that.

Don't jump to conclusions...and put that question to his Doctor next time you see him.
Best wishes,
Jamis

It wouldn't surprise me if hydrocephalus or meningitis would cause sleep disorders, including apnea.

A sleep test for apnea or other problems would probably be a good idea. Maybe some of his problems are due to apnea, not the direct consequences of the hydrocephalus. One big danger in medicine is missing one serious medical problem because the patient has already been diagnosed with a different serious medical condition with a lot of complications.

I wouldn't be too surprised if apnea might increase the odds for hydrocephalus, either. It can cause fluid problems, O2 deprivation, swelling, etc.

You are asking this question on an internet site................ask your doctor. We all have sleep apnea or a derivative, we are not medical professionals...at least most of us are not.

Sleep affects everything; everything affects sleep.

Sleep issues are sometimes considered symptoms of other physical, mental, or emotional difficulties; yet, sleep issues often need direct treatment nonetheless.

Figuring out which name goes with which condition and what causes what is all well and good in theory, but those questions are often more important to patients than to docs, in practice. Docs are generally more in the business of looking for indications that a certain treatment might help a certain patient in a certain circumstance or disease state--regardless of the names and the causation. After all, names and causation are pretty much useless information, medically speaking, unless there is a treatment to offer.

The way one finds out whether something is going on with sleep that might be treated is to have a sleep study and to act on the findings in the light of all the other conditions that may or may not be related.

Or something like that.

But what do I know?

I am 71 and have had hydrocephalus all of my life. I have sleep problems probably coming from the hydrocephalus, but my neurologist seems to be unaware of any association of hydrocephalus and sleeping disorders. Not only am I having insomnia, but I also have difficulty with fatigue and low energy. I have a shunt installed, but symptoms come and go. I have sleep apnea, when I can manage to sleep at all. It seems logical to me that hydrocephalus might be able to cause sleep apnea, but it does not seem reasonable to speculate that sleep apnea could cause hydrocephalus. In this particular case, the two things coincide with each other, but there should be no confusion between which is the cause and which is the effect.

jnk wrote:Sleep affects everything; everything affects sleep.

Sleep issues are sometimes considered symptoms of other physical, mental, or emotional difficulties; yet, sleep issues often need direct treatment nonetheless.

Figuring out which name goes with which condition and what causes what is all well and good in theory, but those questions are often more important to patients than to docs, in practice. Docs are generally more in the business of looking for indications that a certain treatment might help a certain patient in a certain circumstance or disease state--regardless of the names and the causation. After all, names and causation are pretty much useless information, medically speaking, unless there is a treatment to offer.

The way one finds out whether something is going on with sleep that might be treated is to have a sleep study and to act on the findings in the light of all the other conditions that may or may not be related.

Or something like that.

But what do I know?

Seems like you know enough to know that you don't know a lot? Neither do most docs. You say that docs are generally looking for an indication - that is the reality of Western medicine. Modern "treatments" actually only "treat" the symptoms, not the cause. To treat the cause requires a lot more specialized training, and a lot more time with each patient, than docs/insurance companies are able to obtain/pay for.

Much of modern medicine is about associations, rather than causal links. Product x is associated with an improvement in symptom y. It does not cause the improvement. We do not know why many products work, or why they don't work in some patients. That is why we need to discuss these things with our docs, who may have experience of treating that symptom before and know what to do. Do they need to know the cause if the medicine "works"?

Hi, I'd be more inclined to think the meningitis is having more lasting (if not permanent) effects as it does that in other cases... not necessarily leave an effect on sleep, but various types of left-over effects in general. See if you can get your doctors to address this aspect of things... the hydrocephalus being a more 'mechanical' type of issue.

morph2020 wrote:I am 71 and have had hydrocephalus all of my life. I have sleep problems probably coming from the hydrocephalus, but my neurologist seems to be unaware of any association of hydrocephalus and sleeping disorders. Not only am I having insomnia, but I also have difficulty with fatigue and low energy. I have a shunt installed, but symptoms come and go. I have sleep apnea, when I can manage to sleep at all. It seems logical to me that hydrocephalus might be able to cause sleep apnea, but it does not seem reasonable to speculate that sleep apnea could cause hydrocephalus. In this particular case, the two things coincide with each other, but there should be no confusion between which is the cause and which is the effect.

Old thread from 2011 so don't expect a response from OP.

morph2020 wrote:I am 71 and have had hydrocephalus all of my life. I have sleep problems probably coming from the hydrocephalus, but my neurologist seems to be unaware of any association of hydrocephalus and sleeping disorders. Not only am I having insomnia, but I also have difficulty with fatigue and low energy. I have a shunt installed, but symptoms come and go. I have sleep apnea, when I can manage to sleep at all. It seems logical to me that hydrocephalus might be able to cause sleep apnea, but it does not seem reasonable to speculate that sleep apnea could cause hydrocephalus. In this particular case, the two things coincide with each other, but there should be no confusion between which is the cause and which is the effect.

I am 46 and have had hydrocephalus all my life. My sleep problems come from hydrocephalus. I don't have sleep apnea and my neurologist who is one of the foremost authorities(Dr. Michael Williams, formerly at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, he is now at the Brain and Spine Institute in Baltimore) on hydrocephalus knows about my sleep problem. He has never mentioned sleep apnea to me. Since I have trouble sleeping anyway, and do not snore when I sleep, I don't think I will get it. Even though my mother was diagnosed with it a couple years ago, and my younger brother just recently.