headaches often

[gloria]

hi I am gloria:

i have been on cumadin for about 2 1/2 years now. I have started to get severe headaches. i wonder does it have anything to do with my medication. another question, does altitude affects any of you all? it seems like the changing of altitudes affected my blood pressure. i am afraid to fly. do any of you cumadin users fly on commercial airlines?

 

[Nancy]

Hi Gloria-

Welcome to the site. My husband has been on Coumadin for 26 years. It hasn't caused headaches for him, nor has it caused a problem flying. We have a member Al Lodwick who is an expert in Coumadin. His website is a wealth of information on Coumadin. You might also want to post your message in the Coumadin forum here where it will get more answers.

This is Al's website:
http://www.warfarinfo.com/

By the way, my husband, in recent years has developed pulmonary hypertension and because of that, he would probably have trouble flying, since the added pressures, even in a pressurized cabin, would cause problems for him. He'd probably need oxygen.

When did you have your last echocardiogram? Did things check out OK?

 

[TSH]

Around a year and 3 months after starting my coumadin therapy, I also started having severe headaches on a daily basis. Mine are the typical migraine type headache (with aura). My neurologist has prescribed Topamax, and it has kept them under control. I only have the headaches now every couple of months, usually if I have too much caffeine.

I've asked before if others have had this problem, but apparently not too many have.

 

[Birky]

headaches

headaches

I too have headaches since the surgery. Now after a year, they are starting to subside. I was getting them at least every 2 weeks for no reason. I was prescribed a beta blocker but decided not to take it since it slows me down. I am hoping mine get better as time goes along. I thought mine might be medication related since I had never been on cardizem before. I am trying to pinpoint what I was doing prior to getting the headache. Food, activity or what. Hopefully your will get better,

 

[Guest]

The people that I have seen with headaches due to bleeding in the brain from warfarin have described them as the worst possible headache that you could imagine - so bad that they could not even open their eyes.

Maybe Gisele will see this and describe hers - she is the "expert" on bleeding in the head.

 

[Marge]

I've had headaches off & on since my valve repair surgery Feb. 12. I don't know whether I'd call them migraines (I am not sure what migraines are, actually.)

They are sometimes accompanied by a slightly "sick" feeling, stopping short of actual nausea, something like the onset of motion-sickness or an inner-ear disturbance. Taking a couple of tylenol and lying down for a short time with my eyes closed usually makes them go away. I think they may be related to the anesthesia, and possibly to medication -- they have been far less frequent since my doctor took me off digoxin (which I had been on in the hospital and for several days after surgery).

 

[Gisele]

Al.................you looking for me? bleeding head expert? I am so honored to be an expert at something.....lol

1st subdural: I thought was a sinus infection. Showed up to work every day thinking, gee....this headache just won't go away. The pain would wake me in the middle of the night. Fortunately my sharp cardiologist who was my boss at the time ordered at CT scan when the antibiotics he prescribed three days earlier hadn't started working. I still thought I had a really bad sinus infection.

2nd subdural: This pain was worse, but the only thing that brought me to ER was the pain had woken me up in the middle of the night. I remembered that from the first one. After a few nights of this I decided one morning at 6:30 to go to ER, even though I really didn't think I was bleeding. By the time I was being transported to Boston this was the worse pain I thought I have ever felt in my life. Morphine did nothing for the pain relief as well as everything else they gave me. The severe pain didn't get relieved until after my burr hole evacuation which relieved the intense pressure I was feeling.

3rd subdural: One week later.........had been home from Boston for one day but was admitted to a local hospital within 24 hrs of Boston discharge for heparin. Within 24 hours of the heparin being started my CT scan showed I was bleeding again. This pain was just as bad if not worse. Back to Boston and I endured that pain for several days. I don't know why they didn't operate this time other than maybe where I had a stroke right after the surgery maybe they were hesitant and decided to watch the bleed to see if it stopped. I was in too much pain to ask or care to be honest.

Motto is: there are different levels of pain depending on how much bleeding is going on. My INR wasn't in range the first bleed (it was high -maybe 6 or 7) but WAS in range the second bleed, so don't go by your INR. As the bleeding continues in your brain the pressure that builds up is the most intense pain you can ever feel which is why I opted to have my mechanical valve removed. There was no way I was going back on Coumadin since I seemed to be prone to bleeding incidents.

If you have severe pain that you know is not a migraine (I got lots of migraines with an aura) get checked out. You don't want a bleed to get out of control.

 

[catwoman]

Gloria:

I've flown 11 or 12 times since my MVR surgery 6/24/03 and am flying to Albuquerque NM this weekend for a cat show. Have not had any problems with altitude -- perhaps you mean cabin pressure?

 

[Guest]

Can anyone top Gisele as an expert?

 

[bvdr]

Hi Gloria,

I am on coumadin and I fly quite often. I find that anytime I am carrying extra fluid that I am prone to get a migraine. Flying definitely changes my fluid balance and quite often I get a headache afterwards. Like Nancy mentioned about Joe, I also have some PH and CHF and I think that is the problem rather than anything to do with coumadin.

I started getting very frequent migraines while still in the hospital with my MVR. I was prescribed Imitrex which works great (headache aura, numbness, sensitivity, visual disturbances, and sometimes some difficulties with speech are often all gone in 15-30 minutes and the pain never arrives).

My headaches are now very infrequent.