Home after head pain

Hi, I am home now after the shooting pains in the back of my head after being in the hospital for 4 days. I had a pacemaker put in on July 8th. They took all kinds of test, and all the results came back negative for anything. They even interrogated my pacemaker again. I have to see my primary doctor in a couple of weeks for a follow up. I think they believe that it will go away in time. One if my lympth nodes are swollen a little in that area around my neck, but they could not find anything else. When I am laying down I feel good, but when I sit or stand, sometimes I get headaches and shooting pains. They told me to try Tylenol on it and see if it helps for now. Thanks everyone for your comments.

4 Comments

hang in there

by mandogrl - 2009-07-26 10:07:16

and it's okay to bug your doctors with questions and concerns a little more than usual when your adjusting to your PM. I didn't have headaches, but had way more discomfort than I expected, including swollen left side of my neck/throat area. the symptoms got better a little at a time til at 3 months I was doing much better. Good luck!

Pain

by SMITTY - 2009-07-27 03:07:48

Hello Jimmy412,

I think you just got the long winded version of "we don't know what in hell is wrong with you." So they did what any good doctor would do, they sent you home to wait and see if your problem will just go away, or you will go away and stop bothering them. Its for certain they do not think your pain is as sever as you describe here or they would have offered more than Tylenol for pain.

I have a question. Have you had any kind of spinal injections recently for anything. The reason I ask is I had one for lower back pain on 6-1-09 and got what they call a dural puncture. With it came the headache from hell and the injection didn't do didley for the back pain. My only relief was to lie down. Do that and the pain woud be gone with a few minutes and stay gone until I had been up for anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours. In addition it gave me a very severe case of tinitus, which is a ringing in the ears that at times is so loud you will think you can not stand if for another minute. Of course you do stand it and the extremely loud ringing tapers off after a while but never goes away.

When I complained the called me back and did what they call a "blood patch." That is where the take blood from your arm and inject into the area where they poked the hole they shouldn't have. It solved about half of my headache problem, but did very little for the tinitus. I now have some pretty potent pain killers for the headache now for those times I can't lie down

I mention all of this only because you have a cure for your headaches that is exactly what stops mine so I was just wondering if you have any of the other experiences I have had.

I wish you the best,

Smitty

No injections

by jimmy412 - 2009-07-27 06:07:45

I have not had any injections lately. I do have a different setup to and from my heart with the Persistent Left Superior Vena Cava I have, and that was some of the stuff they were looking at. I cannot take NSAID pain medications like Motrin due to having a gastric bypass. They did say I have a larger opening there near the neck, and that could be causing problems. But I think they think it may go away in time. I took tylenol today for it, but can still feel the underlying headache and it has not gone away yet.

At least I am still off work for a few more weeks to see if it subsides. So I have some time to see what happens. Today was the first day I tried the tylenol, but as of yet, it has not seemed to do much.

After Effects

by donb - 2009-07-27 10:07:34

after surgery are really starting to stack up for me also. A week ago I had another reconstruction of my old PM site with lead dress as the lead terminal caps eroded again. Well, I just finished up with Vancomycin to clean up bowel bugs from too much antibiotics (Cipro) from the last 3 PM surgeries since Dec. Yesterday I had to go into the Clinic for terrrible left neck pain and couldn't swallow . The pain extended up behind my left ear to the top middle of my head. Again, another antibiotic reaction, the Baby ailment yeast infection called Thrush. So Im on Nystatin to try to clean it up. Sooo, unless you're healthy as a horse it just don't end. I am underweight, I'm usally 154 lbs @5' 10". Since Dec I'm trying to at least keep 138lbs

You know you're wired when...

You have an excuse for being a couch potato.

Member Quotes

My pacemaker was installed in 1998 and I have not felt better. The mental part is the toughest.