Needing symptom info

[WmM3]

Hi,

I have had Hydrocephalus all my life. but the past several years I have been dealing with a whole new set of symptoms, including: chronic back/neck pain with excruciating headaches just to name a few.

I had a VP shunt completely removed and a VA shunt installed on the opposite of my head in 2002. Since then despite an apparently working shunt with good drainage I have continued with headaches that are seperate from the type brought on by neck/back pain. This other form I have come to call pressure differential headaches as both high and low pressure can trigger headaches.

What I have been wondering is whether somehow I could be leaking fluid from the old shunt site (this has been dissmissed without much consideration by my NS) yet I still hear this same "squirting sound" behind my right ear. This sound being extra active has always accompanied serious headaches.

If someone could let me know what the physical symptoms of CSF are or are as you have experienced them I would very much appreciate it.

[Concerned Gal]

I can only tell you what I have experienced and hopefully that helps.

January 2006 - dull ache in back of head in the centre. Felt like my head wasn't sitting on my spine properly. Shooting pains up back of head and grabbing across the front when I was uprighting myself after bending over
February - March 2006 - sort physio, chiro on Drs advice
April 2006 onwards- intense pain when upright, like the inside layer of my head was being ripped away from the inner side of my skull, a "raw" sensation in my head, pressure pulling down my neck, vomiting if upright and pain starts and I don't lie down within 5 mins, a throbbing/pulsating sensation when lying down after being upright, first thing in the morning when walking for first time that day jolting in my head like my spine was jolting into my brain, some dizziness in patches, stiff neck that locked up if I was upright and felt like if I didn't lie down my neck was going to slip to one side and break. Oh, and my eye was often watering a sticky clear fluid (not a huge amount but I noticed it - similar to hayfever), and a blood shot/cloudy eye (particularly left one that started exactly when this all started).

My leak is at the spinal level, so I never "heard" any fluid sounds etc