Dabilitating headache after routine surgery

[mhardin07]

I am 29 years old and had routine gall bladder surgery a few days ago.  I must say that I have been diagnosed with Arnold Chiari Malformation, but only by accident looking for something else. I have never had an issues with the ACM.  So, I had surgery on Wed and was sent home as it is out patient. I had to be admitted later that night due to horrible screaming pain on my let side that left me breathless, and extreme nausea and vomiting. They gave me dilauddid(delatta) all night IV, said I could have it every hour. I took it about every 2-3 hours.  The next morning the pain was under better control as was the nausea.  I hate semi solids for breakfast and lunch, soup and cream of wheat and kept it down, so they were ready to discharge me. They stopped my pain med IV about 6:30am. About 10:30 I started having a headache. They said if you do not take a lot of pain meds, certain ones can cause and aftermath headached, especially dilauddid. So, they gave my my percocet and sent me on my way. By the time I got home, I was throwing up again and had the worst dabilitating headache of my life. I could hardley move, speak, anything and I was so sick. It felt like the top of my head was going to explode. I had to take percocet every 3.5 hours just to keep it at a minimal. They have told me that if it comes back like that, I need to go to the ER. Today seems to be a lot better, but it still hurts. My head feels sore and kind of numb. I am still taking percocet, just not as much.  Does anyone know what, if anything with the surgery could cause the horrible pain in my head? It scared us all so bad and I scared for it to come back.

[saler]

I just had Carotid Artery surg on the 6th of Feb. 3 days after my surg I started having severe headaches and then had a seziure and was in ICU for 3 days, I am still having headaches and my BP is somedays out of sight 235/174.  Do you have a clue as to what might be going on?
I have been to my PCP and she has started me on BP meds and Migraine meds but the pain is still there.

[panda423]

Did you have an epidural by chance? Or any type of spinal tap/lumbar puncture? I'm assuming probably not if it was just a routine gall bladder surgery, but I didn't know what else they may have done while you were there. If you did have some sort of epidural/lumbar puncture than you may have spinal headaches. If that's the case then you would probably need to have a Blood Patch procedure done to stop the headaches. You can have this done at the ER. I had this done twice, unfortunately. If not, then you may be reacting to whatever type of anesthesia you received. I have that problem too, am usually admitted to the hospital after out patient surgery due to extreme nausea. I always have headaches, so unsure if the headaches were worse with the sensitivity to anesthestia, but the nausea was horrible! Follow up with your DR if you are still having problems. You may even want to make a call to the anesthesia dept at the hospital who did your surgery to see if they may think it's from that.  If it's spinal headaches, then the Anesthesiologist handles the Blood Patch procedure as well. Good luck, hope you feel better. I know what it's like to have headaches like that.

[mhardin07]

I didn't have brain surgery, I had gall bladder surgery.

[DrNoopurMD]

Hi,

Headaches can occur after brain surgery and the reason for these headaches is trauma to brain and injury to the nerves, it can also occur due to pressure and swelling in the brain as a result of surgery. It is one of the after effects of surgery.
I would suggest you to follow up with your treating doctor about this. Take care!