Abdominal Pain

[liferdude]

Hello, I recently July - October I had surgery for a brain anerysm. A shunt was installed for drainage which terminates in my stomach cavity. I have been having pain about 4 inches below the incision area. I have told my neurologist and he scheduled a sonogram and the only abnormality was some gall stones (small amount) and everything else was ok. I continue to have this pain, it feels sort of like a muscle pull but it is way below the muscle surface. Should I be concerned or have more of a check done. Thank you, Chris

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

The nausea due to increased intracranial pressure does not usually get relieved by vomiting. You should anyways get the shunt rechecked by the surgeon.

Regards

[liferdude]

Thank you for responding to my concern. I was told that they were small, should I till be concerned? It is good to hear that a shunt dysfunction would be a lot more symptoms. I remember last year I had an infection in the shunt and it had to be moved to the other side of my head and a pick line with antibiotics. The symptons were very similar to when I originally had the aneurysm. I do get headaches often, but, no where near as severe as last year.

I also have nausea on some occasions during the day, some time when I take my morning meds I some time gag on a little and get a dull ache in my stomach a couple of times I ended up vomiting, I felt fine afterward. I guess the gallstone issue must be bad enough to cause all these problems even though my sonogram did not show it to be to bad. Should I go to my doctor and ask for further tests? or some type of medicine?

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

You are worried about the shunt, I guess. Do not worry. The pain is most probably due to the gall stone. Take steps to get it treated. If there was any shunt dysfunction, you would have had many more symptoms including headaches.

Regards