Cerebral Angiogram- good experience
Hello! I wanted to come on to share a good experience I just had with getting a cerebral angiogram to establish if I have Venous Sinus Stenosis. I am a 27 yo F who was diagnosed with IIH in October 2025 after having constant whooshing (pulsatile tinnitus) in my right ear since 2021 and more recently ocular nerve swelling (which led to my referral to a neuro ophthalmologist and subsequent diagnosis). We got the swelling under control with Diamox and Zonisamide over the course of a few months, but the tinnitus never went away. MRI came back normal, so my MD wanted to take one last step to find any structural abnormalities and referred me to get a cerebral angiogram.
Had the angiogram yesterday, and I was very nervous but everything went very well so I wanted to share what I consider a good experience as encouragement for those of you anticipating going through this soon! Checked in at about 8 am, got into my gown and a nurse started IV access and marked spots on the tops of my feet where they could monitor my pulse. Had a really boring wait for about an hour until they took me back to the procedure room. Before the procedure my doctor came in and spoke with me about how the procedure would go and let me know they’d be giving me anxiety medication via IV so I’m nice and calm for the duration. Once I was in the room where the procedure would take place, they had me transfer to another bed and got me hooked up to their drip bag, covered me in warm blankets, and prepped the entry site. They strapped my head into an inflated cuff and got me nice and snug so I couldn’t move, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. They had some gauzy cuffs on my wrists too which they explained was so I wouldn’t go to itch my face or something while I was being sedated. Again, those weren’t uncomfortable or tight, and my arms had to be by my sides anyway so I barely noticed that. I was honestly lying there amazed at the technology in the room. They started the anxiety medication and I remember listening to music (“Born to be Wild” was playing when I was wheeled in 😂) and the numbing shot they gave me before accessing the artery, but honestly it didn’t even burn like I expected. I guess that’s probably thanks to apathy created by the anxiety medication 😂. They accessed via the groin for me, and made two entrances, one for accessing the artery and one for a vein.
In advance the team told me that closing my eyes would be best so that blinking wouldn’t affect the imaging, so I did that and relaxed so much that I dozed off for probably half of the procedure, then woke up as they were finishing up. I felt a bit weird in my neck when they were testing the pressure in my vein, but I wouldn’t say it was painful at all. Just a very strange feeling that I was happy to be done with. It ended very quickly and before I knew it they transferred me back to a rolling bed and I was on my way back to my room. My boyfriend said it was just about an hour from the time they took me to when I rolled back in the room.
For recovery I had to lay flat for two hours, then they propped my head up a bit and gave me a drink and a snack to wait for 2 more hours. During that time the doctor came in and spoke with me about what they saw. They found narrowing exactly where they thought they would (venous sinus right behind my right ear), and the plan is to go back in a week for an appointment to talk and schedule my stent placement. He mentioned that it was very run of the mill, and that everything else they saw looked perfectly normal so that’s reassuring. I’m on Aspirin and Clopidogrel daily for now in preparation for the stent placement, so just waiting to have this all over with.
Only hiccup the whole time was that when I was getting my clothes on to leave, the site started bleeding again, but I was able to lay flat again and a nurse applied pressure then redressed it with gauze and a clotting agent to help it along. They had me stay for another hour and at the end of that hour, I was able to move around and even go to the bathroom without any more bleeding, so I was finally able to leave at 4pm. Because of that I took an extra day off just to be extra cautious with healing and take it easy, but 1 day later I honestly feel fine and there isn’t even soreness in my groin, just an awareness of the access point that’s healing when I sit or stand.
I hope this gives some clarity and encouragement to someone who might be nervous like I was. The anxiety beforehand was honestly the worst part of the whole experience for me. Obviously not everyone has a good experience, that’s an unfortunate fact of life, BUT I hope that this helps someone see that not everyone has a BAD experience either. Seeing how many people were there having the same procedure as me yesterday morning served as a good reminder to me that the VAST majority of people who go through this have never even heard of or visited sites like Reddit, so take into consideration the experiences you hear here, but remember that angiograms and stent placements are happening ALL THE TIME and the sample of people talking about their experience on the internet is undoubtedly very small.
Best wishes to you all ❤️