Recurrent headaches with fever

[grace7ms]

Hi, my name is Grace, 53, married for 35 years, 5 children and 3 granddaughters.  I had my AN surgery (craniotomy, left side) at UCLA on 9/20/04. The surgery took 9 hours, had an uneventful recovery.  Lost my hearing completly, had some facial paralysis, which is almost resolved.  By all acounts I should be doing really well.  About 2 months after the surgery I started to develop horrible headaches which after a few days it was followed by severe chills and fever which would get as high as 102. After 2 days of fever, the headaches would subside and I would recover.  Only to be repeated every 10 to 14 days.  My neurosurgon said it could not have anything to do with the surgery since it happened so far after my initial recovery.  My other doctors did not know what to make of it, they put my thru more blood test, galleum scans, and other test looking for anything that could be causing the fevers.  After many months of this, I was admitted while my fever was starting and did a lumbar pucture, which showed a very elevated white blood cell count.  More CT Scans and more MRIs showed something was brewing in the surgery site.  The diagnosed this condition as "chemical meningitis" and then the neurosurgem decided he needed to go back in and clean things out.  He also thought I might have a CSF leak.  My sencond surgery was done on 7/1/05, it took about 3 hours, they removed the titanium mesh and found pockets of pus or something like that, which they cleaned out very well, plugged holes in the mastoid bone with fat from my stomach area and put a fresh titanium mesh and closed me back up. Also I was given massive amounts of atibiotics for two weeks, which made be very sick.  Well, guess what? Last week my headaches came back, and on Friday, 9/23/05 my chills and fever set in.  Called Doctors, sent me to the E.R., did another CT Scan, which showed no changes, gave me more antibiotics and told me they would see me in 2 weeks.  I don't know if anyone else has had a similar experience, but I sure would appreciate some feed back.  I am feeling very frusrated at this point.  I just don't know if I can go thru this again.
Grace

[Larry]

Grace,

I sympathise with you. I am 3 years post AN surgery and have constant headaches every day. Some days are worse than others. I don't get the fever though.
I have found that the doctor profession is largely very protective and defensive over post op issues. I can only suggest that you write to other neurosurgeons perhaps out of the state you ar in and tell them your condition and ask them if they have encountered anything similar.

it sounds like the initial op you had was not done very well and depending on your findings, you may want to take the matter further.

My post op issues are not as sever as yours but I have just recovered the notes on my file from my surgeon and am tempted to write a letter to the AMA (Australian medical Association) as a complaint.

I wish I sought out other opinions pre my surgery as I probably would have done things differently.


Larry