• Ferdi Doğanay, Lütfiye Pirbudak, Rauf Gül, Mehmet Alptekin, and Nurgül Kaplan.
• Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Algology, Gaziantep University Faculty of Medicine, Gaziantep, Turkey.
• Agri. 2013 Jan 1;25(3):129-32.

AbstractThe development of intracranial subdural hematoma after spinal anesthesia is a rare and serious complication that can be fatal if untreated. Needle puncture to the dura mater can cause leakage of cerebrospinal fluid, and lead to stretching and rupture of the meningeal blood vessels with resultant bleeding. A 24-year-old patient, with a completely normal history and laboratory analysis, has got a L4-5 level spinal anesthesia well done at first try, using a Quinke 25 G needle and 12,5 mg bupivacaine heavy. The first day after spinal anesthesia, the patient started to have a headache. He applied to another hospital where he received conservative treatment with a diagnosis of post-spinal headache. But, persistence of the headache made the patient refer to our pain clinic. The headache was located behind the left ear non-postural in nature, and was associated with tinnitus. Emergency cranial computerized tomography was obtained and acute fronto-temporo-parietal subdural hematoma was reported. After spinal anesthesia, continued atypical headache and presence of tinnitus must alert against an underlying subdural hematoma. Early diagnosis can be made by history of the patient combined with neurological and radiological imaging methods.

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