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Please can anyone hepl?Severe headaches after spinal surgery but not a dural leak

11 replies

Berrie · 26/11/2009 12:33

I had an emergency microdiscectomy on the 3rd of November.It was a very large disc. Three days later I began to suffer unbearable headaches which lasted 15 minutes each. I was finally readmitted and stayed in for over a week taking very high doses of drugs which had no effect when the headaches came. Only the morphine helped but the oral morphine which was quickest to administer on the ward didn't kick in for 20 minutes by which time it had passed. It prevented another one as they often come in clusters. I had a CT scan. They do not think it is a dural leak as they are intermittent and don't improve when lying down. The back people didn't think it was anything to do with the surgery, the neurologist thinks it was. I started taking Gabapentin. The headaches became more bearable and I came home. I stopped taking the tramadol because I am worried about getting addicted, I can't look after dd when I am so drugged up and when the headaches come, they come whether I'm on Tramadol or not.

I want to go and see the Doctor to talk stuff through but I can't drive to an a.m. same day appointment until I see the Consultant on the 21st Dec. (I've tried to get round this!)I can't walk there (I collapsed when I walked up to get ds from school last week)I can't get an evening appointment until some time in December. If I did get there I don't suppose there is much he/she can do. I'm supposed to be getting an outpatient appointment for neurology in 3 months.

Congratulation if you are still with me! I am just hoping that someone else might have some experience of what I've described as the Doctors are stumped or leaving me to sit it out a bit...but it hurts and I can't sit here swigging oramorph all day!

OP posts:
Berrie · 26/11/2009 12:59

bump

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Berrie · 26/11/2009 13:49

bump

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Berrie · 26/11/2009 14:30

bump

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Berrie · 26/11/2009 15:50

bump

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OhYouBadBadKitten · 26/11/2009 16:34

bumping for you.

Berrie · 26/11/2009 17:48

Thanks

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Berrie · 26/11/2009 20:31

bump

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OhYouBadBadKitten · 26/11/2009 20:45

I wish someone knew for you, it sounds really rotten I hope it improves soon.

Berrie · 27/11/2009 11:08

Ah well. Thanks anyway. One more try!

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OhYouBadBadKitten · 27/11/2009 20:26

aw, I'll give it another go hope you are feeling a bit better today!

libbygrayhair · 27/11/2009 20:53

This is a horrible situation to be in, and you have my sympathies. For a short while I worked in the office of an NHS pain clinic, and got to realise how much a pain problem can impact on people's lives. You don't say why it was an emergency discectomy, but I assume you've been suffering from pain for a while.

I'm in no way any kind of expert, but I would have assumed that if there was a problem with cerebro-spinal fluid, as in a drainage problem, the headaches wouldn't be intermittent. The only thing I can think of is a kind of referred pain. If the discectomy resolved the pain you were previously experiencing, is it possible that now, without that problem, your skeleton/muscles are adjusting? What I mean is that maybe you are now walking/sitting, etc. with your spine in a subtly different way than before. The reason why I'm thinking that, is that maybe that adjustment is now affecting your neck and/or shoulder muscles, which are areas that can provoke headaches. Is it worth consulting a physiotherapist?

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