Shunt "hangover"?

[abbysdad]

Abby got her shunt on Friday and was doing great up to Sunday lunchtime - quiet, happy, even smiling occasionally. Then she started getting distressed and ended up screaming and unable to sleep through a lot of Sunday evening. They tried paracetemol (same thing as acetaminophen), but it had no effect. Eventually they gave her codeine in the late evening and by about midnight she had settled. Today she was still upset - not screaming like the night before, more like her pre-shunt mood (cranky and upset - not at all comfortable).

The hospital are describing it as shunt "hangover" (i.e. feels like a hangover to her). Anyone else experience anything similar? If so, how long did it go on for? Did you find anything to help settle your baby? (they are very reluctant to give her codeine, we've been having to push pretty hard to keep her out of pain).

I'm sure if it was me, I'd feel pretty grumpy after someone drilled a hole in my head. That said though, it's not making sense to me that she was fine for nearly 2 days and then it started? It can't have been masked by the anasthetic for that long, can it?

Hoping someone will be able to shed the light of experience on this for me... I'm not usually prone to worrying, but I'm worried now...

Thanks

[abbysdad]

they are very reluctant to give her codeine

Thankfully, tonight's nurse is different. Codeine is in and Abby is more settled (not sleeping yet, but hopefully...)

[smoop]

Poor baby. My daughter was shunted at 3 months old and I couldn't believe how quickly she recovered. It was like she never had surgery... very strange. I hope your baby feels much better pronto!

[Summer25]

The only time I had this happen was when I was switched from a VP shunt to a VA shunt. I came out of surgery with the same symptoms I had going in. It was like that for a day and then just all of a sudden I was fine. Personally, if she came out of surgery just fine, I would be worried it was a malfunction. I am assuming they have taken her temp and she doesn't have a fever? Could be the start of an infection too.

[cutie patooties mom]

I hope that by now Abby is doing fine. My daughter did fine after her first shunt (9 days old). She did have a shunt malfunction at 7 1/2 months old with the symptoms you are describing. She had to have 4 revisions within a 2 week period because of debris clogging the shunt up. She had the same symptoms each time. Are they doing a follow up MRI on her to check out these problems?
You all will be in my prayers.

[abbysdad]

No MRI yet, but they did do a cranial ultrasound and a round of bloods, with a view to possibly following-on with a lumbar puncture (aka spinal tap I think). Hopefully the lumbar puncture will be unnecessary - we don't want to _introduce_ infection!

Abby slept a lot today and didn't need the codeine in afternoon - when awake, she was in better form than yesterday. A good sign I hope...

[cadon's mum]

Cadon has just had a double shunt revision, after he came back from theatre the first time he would'nt feed, was very sleepy but did not want to be led down he just wasn't right. Then he started vomiting it turned out that his shunt had been blocked again by a clot of blood he had to go down again for another revision, as soon as he came out of theatre he fed and slept a lot for the first couple of days, the neurosurgeon said that he was suffering from low pressure symptons ( just like a hangover !!) . Hope abbey recovers quickly as cadon has.

[abbysdad]

Hey - I just found your thread on Cadon's shunt revision. You had a rough start - very glad to hear it's working better for him now.

Abby's doing OK. She seems a lot more cranky to me than she was before, but that may be skewed as I only see her in the evenings (our first boy was consistently cranky in the evenings too). Ultrasound, bloods and opthalmology have all signed her shunt off as OK, so I'm hoping it's just 'normal' crankiness.

She gave me my first 'social' smile yesterday - sure made me forget the crankiness! :)

[Barb]

Could it be a case of slit vents? Has anyone talked about that?

[abbysdad]

Could it be a case of slit vents? Has anyone talked about that?

Never heard of it... Please elaborate!

[Summer25]

Never heard of it... Please elaborate!

slit ventricles basically mean that they are so small that when a shunt malfunctions it doesn't show up on a ct scan. Can also cause some shunt like symptoms. That is what I know about it though.

[jveprek]

Madi was like that when her shunt got infected. It was 2 weeks after her initial surgery.