Tag Archives: brain injury awareness hydrocephalus

Grumpy with a side of tea

I’ve had shunt and forehead pain with a side nausea and right eye pain consistently for over a week now. The eye pain ( strabismus surgery eye ) happens at the same time as shunt and distal catheter pain. My shunt is probably adjusting itself or just being an unruly medical device or both. I’ve also had scalp sensitivity where my shunt is and am more aware of this when I comb my hair.

Either way, it’s made me grumpy and I’ve been staying indoors when I don’t have anywhere I need to be. Pain reliever’s haven’t been working.

I don’t think the settings are have changed. Although, I wouldn’t have anyway to check this because…

1. My neurologist doesn’t know how to check my shunt’s settings
2. The last neurosurgeon I saw in 2018, didn’t know how to do this either. Because…

Apparently the shunt I was given isn’t used anywhere nearby.

And this is just so helpful…

I can’t go back to my ex neurosurgeon (who placed this shunt) because I fired him and he got animated into one of my films…

All I can do is wait for this to go away.

And there’s always a little time for a tea…

And then the neuro ophthalmologist said..

Today dizziness is somewhat better than the shunt pain madness of last few weeks because..

Last weekend, my shunt was causing some nausea, dizziness, valve pain and balance issues. This happened in the evening and made me nervous, as I had fears the device would fail on me again. The following day, I only had some nausea, shunt pain was gone and I realized my shunt was adjusting itself or just driving me a little insane….because I do believe my medical device is vindictive sometimes.

The good news is, when it was very windy earlier this week and it didn’t bother my shunt. Usually when it’s windy outside, every gust of wind caused shunt pain.

Yesterday, the coldness outside made my scalp sensitive. It hurt to touch the top of my head where my shunt is inside my skull.

About a week ago, the shunt pain felt like a needle had been pushed down into my skull.

I haven’t had shunt failure in five years.

I saw the neuro opthalmologist who repaired my right eye in 2015 after my brain injuries. He told me my eye is doing well. I asked him about the pain behind my right eye. I’ve had this pain since my injuries in 2015. He said it could be either one of the following, or both:

1. Dry eye – Which can be alleviated by dry eye drops
2. A result of the injuries I had in 2015.

I do notice that when I have throbbing and pain from my shunt, I also have pain behind my right eye. I was told to ask my neurologist about the pain to see if it’s related to my injuries.

So we’ll see.  For now, I’m going to enjoy being pain free with occasional dizziness.