Expert: Ronald Levy, M.D. - 7/28/2010

Question
My daughter is 19 years old. She had a problem with her knee in college.  The accident happened in Feb but she didnt get a diagnosis on it until May.  She had sheared her ACL.  During this time she started getting headaches occasionally.  Because of the therapy involved they took her into surgery the first part of June in order to get her back to college.  Since then her headaches have been daily occasionally increasing to Migraine level especially the first 2 weeks after the procedure. She has seen a neurologist and had all of the scans to rule out tumors etc.  A friend of ours had a similiar surgery at the same time and has had similiar headaches.  Could the anesthesthtic have been the problem?  They are 8 weeks post op. My daughter is currently taking a round of predisone to see if this will stop the headaches.  It all seems to center around the surgery. I know it would seem to be the stress but she is not the type to stress about things like this.  That leads us to believe it was something in the anesthesthti???

Answer
It is highly unlikely to be related to anesthesia. There is nothing in the anesthetic that could have such long term residual effects (I am assuming she had a general anesthetic and not a spinal or epidural). It is probably coincidental that the headaches started at the same time as the surgery. In any case, she is being seen by the right person (neurologist), so see where that leads you.

Ronald Levy, MD
Professor of Anesthesiology
UTM-Galveston