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Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension

By January 23, 2020June 9th, 2021Blog
Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension

What is Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension?

Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension is caused by a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak which can cause a severe postural headache. These headaches are worse with sitting up, better with lying down, which is why they’re called “postural.”  There can be other symptoms including such as impact on a person’s ability to think with clarity, hearing changes, visual disturbances. Both men and women are affected by Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension, but the diagnosis is more common among females.

The root cause of Spontaneous Intracranial Hypotension is the loss of cerebrospinal fluid through a hole or tear in the spinal dura (dense, irregular connective tissue). People with connective tissue disorders such as Ehlers Danlos syndrome tend to be the patients that we see develop this condition the most, oftentimes out of the blue.

What Can Be Done About It?

We have developed a 2-level epidural blood patch protocol, which is a needle based procedure where we draw a patients’ blood under sterile condition and use X-ray guidance to injection the patient’s own blood into the epidural space (the same space where pregnant women get labor epidurals). This can immediately improve a patient’s headache if it is caused by intracranial hypotension.

If you have a postural headache and a connective tissue disorder, this procedure may be of benefit.  Contact us and Drs. Fisk and Julian will determine via initial consultation if you are a candidate.

Acute Pain Therapies

Our Mission is to offer the most safe, effective and scientifically proven acute and chronic pain solutions available. Our hope with the pain management strategies we offer is to provide a means for a patient to overcome their pain while devising a way to achieve an improved quality of life of their own making, while trying to minimize the risk of becoming addicted to pain medications.